SPACE, MAGNETIC POLES, SUN SPOTS, EARTH, 2012 CHANGES

We are learning about space, magnetic poles, sun spots, and Earth regarding the popular date 2012. We are experiencing changes now but we are becoming wiser about learning from past mistakes.

There is much we cannot control on earth and natural cataclysms is part of this.

We know that NEOs are the asteroids and other space junk that comes near earth. Thus, the name NEO for "Near Earth Objects." What have we not known about our past?

There has been much controversy over what will happen to earth and the people on it on December 21, 2012. Basically we can use this date as a bench mark, a time line.

There are many ways to use the information we have but none more than that which is being revealed in space. We are experiencing a rendezvous with earth and space. A Earth Space Renaissance.

We need to encourage change and support success for all beings on earth. We are going through the typical ways of evolution. We just need to combine our efforts for the good of all. Lately, I have been supporting more synergism with others on the Internet.

People are using the Internet and 2012 as a date in time to mark space-time and to increase interests in various topics of awareness in science, astronomy, ancient cultures, folklore and folklife, and plain old common sense versus superstitions. We like to be entertained and it is natural to want to seek after the future dreams.

We now know without dreams and sleep we cannot survive. There have been tests done all over the world dealing with our minds and sleep patterns. There are now psychics being used in criminal investigations. We are learning we can alter our mental states of mind. We are learning there is more to the body-mid-spirit in us all.

All the energy we have taken for granted is now being discussed and studied. There are more theories about energy than ever before. There have been people who knew more than we do about this energy in past civilizations. We just can't figure out how they did it.

Some of the old articles, and books are being revised to support this time on earth. We have seen an increasing interest in what some call alchemy and Shamanistic interests among scientists.

There was once a large divide between Scientists and Metaphysicians. Now the space between these academic disciplines divide is dissolving. There is also a new awareness of motivational speakers versus inspirational and religious topics.

At one time there was a large divide between business and social entrepreneurs and those who were making money around the country at trade conventions separated by science versus science-fiction. That divide is also dissolving. We are becoming aware that all imaginative creations in science were once thought of as science fiction.

The views of producers, writers, creators, in the entertainment industry are seeing more movies that once were classics being remade into updated versions with new heroes.

We have seen the commercial and comic book magazines, publications, and products used in promotions being joined with the gaming industry dealing with all types of brand name products.

The music industry has changed and is blending with the audio visual in ways that we can all enjoy sight and sound on the Internet.

We have some of the poorest people in India that carry cell phones and yet they still act and dress according to their culture and class system of the old world ways.

Where do we draw the line about what was the old ways and what are the new ways on earth?

But don't take my word for it. Do your own research about all the dates in time, ancient cultures and our past. Some people just rely on their religions and the Bible or Quran. There is more, much more to know and to research with findings of facts.

Here are some other views used as reference.

Does Maya calendar predict 2012 apocalypse? By G. Jeffrey MacDonald, Special to USA TODAY

With humanity coming up fast on 2012, publishers are helping readers gear up and count down to this mysterious — some even call it apocalyptic — date that ancient Mayan societies were anticipating thousands of years ago.

Since November, at least three new books on 2012 have arrived in mainstream bookstores. A fourth is due this fall. Each arrives in the wake of the 2006 success of 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, which has been selling thousands of copies a month since its release in May and counts more than 40,000 in print. The books also build on popular interest in the Maya, fueled in part by Mel Gibson's December 2006 film about Mayan civilization, Apocalpyto. Authors disagree about what humankind should expect on Dec. 21, 2012, when the Maya's "Long Count" calendar marks the end of a 5,126-year era.

Journalist Lawrence Joseph forecasts widespread catastrophe in Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation Into Civilization's End. Spiritual healer Andrew Smith predicts a restoration of a "true balance between Divine Feminine and Masculine" in The Revolution of 2012: Vol. 1, The Preparation. In 2012, Daniel Pinchbeck anticipates a "change in the nature of consciousness," assisted by indigenous insights and psychedelic drug use.

The buildup to 2012 echoes excitement and fear expressed on the eve of the new millennium, popularly known as Y2K, though on a smaller scale, says Lynn Garrett, senior religion editor at Publishers Weekly. She says publishers seem to be courting readers who believe humanity is creating its own ecological disasters and desperately needs ancient indigenous wisdom.

"The convergence I see here is the apocalyptic expectations, if you will, along with the fact that the environment is in the front of many people's minds these days," Garrett says. "Part of the appeal of these earth religions is that notion that we need to reconnect with the Earth in order to save ourselves."

However, scholars are bristling at attempts to link the ancient Maya with trends in contemporary spirituality. Maya civilization, known for advanced writing, mathematics and astronomy, flourished for centuries in Mesoamerica, especially between A.D. 300 and 900. Its Long Count calendar, which was discontinued under Spanish colonization, tracks more than 5,000 years, then resets at year zero.

"For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle," says Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies in Crystal River, Fla. To render Dec. 21, 2012, as a doomsday or moment of cosmic shifting, she says, is "a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in."

Part of the 2012 mystique stems from the stars. On the winter solstice in 2012, the sun will be aligned with the center of the Milky Way for the first time in about 26,000 years. This means that "whatever energy typically streams to Earth from the center of the Milky Way will indeed be disrupted on 12/21/12 at 11:11 p.m. Universal Time," Joseph writes.

Nevertheless, scholars doubt the ancient Maya extrapolated great meaning from anticipating the alignment — if they were even aware of what the configuration would be.

Astronomers generally agree, "It would be impossible the Maya themselves would have known that," says Susan Milbrath, a Maya archaeoastronomer and a curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History. What's more, she says, "we have no record or knowledge that they would think the world would come to an end at that point."

University of Florida anthropologist Susan Gillespie says the 2012 phenomenon comes "from media and from other people making use of the Maya past to fulfill agendas that are really their own." http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-03-27-ma ya-2012_N.htm? Csp=34

The Sun Does a Flip. NASA scientists who monitor the Sun say that our star's awesome magnetic field is flipping -- a sure sign that solar maximum is here.

February 15, 2001 -- You can't tell by looking, but scientists say the Sun has just undergone an important change. Our star's magnetic field has flipped.

The Sun's magnetic north pole, which was in the northern hemisphere just a few months ago, now points south. It's a topsy-turvy situation, but not an unexpected one.

"This always happens around the time of solar maximum," says David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the Marshall Space Flight Center. "The magnetic poles exchange places at the peak of the sunspot cycle. In fact, it's a good indication that Solar Max is really here."

Sunspot counts, plotted here against an x-ray image of the Sun, are nearing their maximum for the current solar cycle The Sun's magnetic poles will remain as they are now, with the north magnetic pole pointing through the Sun's southern hemisphere, until the year 2012 when they will reverse again. This transition happens, as far as we know, at the peak of every 11-year sunspot cycle -- like clockwork.

Earth´s magnetic field also flips, but with less regularity. Consecutive reversals are spaced 5 thousand years to 50 million years apart. The last reversal happened 740,000 years ago. Some researchers think our planet is overdue for another one, but nobody knows exactly when the next reversal might occur.

Although solar and terrestrial magnetic fields behave differently, they do have something in common: their shape. During solar minimum the Sun's field, like Earth's, resembles that of an iron bar magnet, with great closed loops near the equator and open field lines near the poles. Scientists call such a field a "dipole." The Sun's dipolar field is about as strong as a refrigerator magnet, or 50 gauss (a unit of magnetic intensity). Earth's magnetic field is 100 times weaker.

The Sun's basic magnetic field, like Earth's, resembles that of a bar magnet.

When solar maximum arrives and sunspots pepper the face of the Sun, our star's magnetic field begins to change. Sunspots are places where intense magnetic loops -- hundreds of times stronger than the ambient dipole field -- poke through the photosphere.

"Meridional flows on the Sun's surface carry magnetic fields from mid-latitude sunspots to the Sun's poles," explains Hathaway. "The poles end up flipping because these flows transport south-pointing magnetic flux to the north magnetic pole, and north-pointing flux to the south magnetic pole."

The dipole field steadily weakens as oppositely-directed flux accumulates at the Sun's poles until, at the height of solar maximum, the magnetic poles change polarity and begin to grow in a new direction.

Hathaway noticed the latest polar reversal in a "magnetic butterfly diagram." Using data collected by astronomers at the U.S. National Solar Observatory on Kitt Peak, he plotted the Sun's average magnetic field, day by day, as a function of solar latitude and time from 1975 through the present. The result is a sort of strip chart recording that reveals evolving magnetic patterns on the Sun's surface. "We call it a butterfly diagram," he says, "because sunspots make a pattern in this plot that looks like the wings of a butterfly." In the butterfly diagram, the Sun's polar fields appear as strips of uniform color near 90 degrees latitude. When the colors change (in this case from blue to yellow or vice versa) it means the polar fields have switched signs.

A "magnetic butterfly diagram," yellow regions are occupied by south-pointing magnetic fields; blue denotes north. At mid-latitudes the diagram is dominated by intense magnetic fields above sunspots. During the sunspot cycle, sunspots drift, on average, toward the equator -- hence the butterfly wings. The uniform blue and yellow regions near the poles reveal the orientation of the Sun's underlying dipole magnetic field. The ongoing changes are not confined to the space immediately around our star, Hathaway added.

The Sun's magnetic field envelops the entire solar system in a bubble that scientists call the "heliosphere." The heliosphere extends 50 to 100 astronomical units (AU) beyond the orbit of Pluto. Inside it is the solar system -- outside is interstellar space.

"Changes in the Sun's magnetic field are carried outward through the heliosphere by the solar wind," explains Steve Suess, another solar physicist at the Marshall Space Flight Center. "It takes about a year for disturbances to propagate all the way from the Sun to the outer bounds of the heliosphere."

Because the Sun rotates (once every 27 days) solar magnetic fields corkscrew outwards in the shape of an Archimedian spiral. Far above the poles the magnetic fields twist around like a child's Slinky toy. Steve Suess (NASA/MSFC) prepared a figure, which shows the Sun's spiraling magnetic fields from a vantage point ~100 AU from the Sun.

Because of all the twists and turns, "the impact of the field reversal on the heliosphere is complicated," says Hathaway. Sunspots are sources of intense magnetic knots that spiral outwards even as the dipole field vanishes.

The heliosphere doesn't simply wink out of existence when the poles flip -- there are plenty of complex magnetic structures to fill the void.Researchers have never seen the magnetic flip happen from the best possible point of view -- that is, from the top down.

But now, the unique Ulysses spacecraft may give scientists a reality check. Ulysses, an international joint venture of the European Space Agency and NASA, was launched in 1990 to observe the solar system from very high solar latitudes.

Every six years the spacecraft flies 2.2 AU over the Sun's poles. No other probe travels so far above the orbital plane of the planets.

"Ulysses just passed under the Sun's south pole," says Suess, a mission co-Investigator. "Now it will loop back and fly over the north pole in the fall."

Right: Following an encounter with Jupiter in 1992, the Ulysses spacecraft went into a high polar orbit. It's maximum solar latitude is 80.2 degrees south.

"This is the most important part of our mission," he says. Ulysses last flew over the Sun's poles in 1994 and 1996, during solar minimum, and the craft made severalimportant discoveries about cosmic rays, the solar wind, and more. "Now we get to see the Sun's poles during the other extreme: Solar Max. Our data will cover a complete solar cycle."

To learn more about the Sun's changing magnetic field and how it is generated, please visit "The Solar Dynamo," a web page prepared by the NASA/Marshall solar research group.

Updates from the Ulysses spacecraft may be found on the Internet from JPL at http://ulysses.jpl.nasa.gov. SEND THIS STORY TO A FRIEND

We can all use some updating on our information regarding earth and space.

If nothing else, begin educating self and others about what we can all do together with synergism to assist everyone increase health and prosperity.

There is plenty of synergism to go around. The date marks a time of energy in space and what befalls planet earth and the human race.

Share in the excitement of the good, educational awareness, and reflective reasoning with the general critical mass populace or be left behind.