Join me now was Andrew Fraknoi, the astronomyprofessor of Foothill College in Los Atlos Hills, Los Altos Hills ***** California. Thank you for being here,I’m so glad to talk with you about this coz there’s so much attention on thisMayan calendar, which is supposedly signaling the end of the world on December21st. What’s the truth, Andrew, behind this calendar, does it really predictthe world’s end?

Well, I like to call this fiction science instead of science fiction. This iscompletely baseless. There’s not a shred of evidence in favor of it, but itsurely is a lot of fun to be worrying about the end of the world. Hollywood knows that too.As far as the Mayan calendar’s concerned, Alex, this is a completemisunderstanding of how calendars work. Look, we face this kind of calendarcliff: every year when on December 31 you run out of pages on your calendar.You don’t think it’s the end of the world, you just think it’s time to go tothe stationary store and buy a new calendar. And the Mayan calendar is the sameway. We are, according to some experts, coming to an end of one of their longcycle of days. But they themselves, the living descendants of the Mayan confirmthat that just means the next cycle will begin.

Alright, there is a prediction about this massive mysterious planet, I thinkit's called Niburu, 4 times the size of earth. It's gonna come close to earthand cause all kinds of disasters. Any truth there?

Absolutely not. And Niburu, as it’s called, is a completely made-up planet fromthe name of an ancient Sumerian God. Can you imagine, Alex, if there reallywere a planet that big coming close to us right now in December, is there anychance that you and all your listeners could not see it? It would be one of thebrightest things in the sky. For years, astronomers would have been yellingabout it. Astronomy hobbyists would have shown it in the paper, it would havebeen everywhere. The notion that a planet can hide, that it wouldn’t disturbthe orbits of the other worlds, it's so ridiculous that scientists can’timagine how anyone takes it seriously. But you are right that people get scaredbecause there is just so much conspiracy stuff out there.

Well, and you know what, there is Hollywoodtoo. What I’m gonna say when you think about that, I sort of think about, youknow, Will Smith and a bunch of US air force hotshots,***they are gonna blow the thing up. Butanyway, I also want to ask you though about solar flares, because there aresmall periods, I mean slow periods of solar flares and sometimes they get a lotbigger, and there’s one that’s supposed to be looming?

Well, no, actually there is a regular cycle of solar activity where the sungets a little bit more explosive on the surface. And there was all this rumorthat the end of the maximum of that cycle will come in 2012. But it's not true,it actually come in 2013. These active regions on the son are not generallypredicable until they happen. And even when they do happen, they don’t affectlife on earth, they occasionally damage a power grid in Canada or theyaffect our satellites in orbit. But the notion that civilization would end orthat MSNBC listeners themselves would be threatened, that’s utterly ridiculous.

Alright so my party plans on Saturday the 22nd are good to go?

Good to go and I'm afraid we will all have to pay taxes in 2013.

Oh, that’s a whole other conversation, alright, thank you very much. ProfessorAndrew Fraknoi, thank you.