
Originally Posted by
Eddie Bravo
Supposedly, according to mainstream astro physicists, December 2012 is the end of a 26,000 year cycle where our star will cross thru the center of the milky way. No one knows for sure what that means exactly but some scientists think that something devastating can happen to the earth's axis and rotation, we'll see. Is it just a crazy ass coincidence that the Mayan calendar ends at the end of a 26,000 year cosmic cycle?? Hhhmm

The planetary system of "Sol" (our sun) sits out about 26,000 light years (or 153,400,000,000,000,000 miles if you prefer long hand) on average. It rotates around our galactic bulge, but never crosses through it. Much like the planets in our system orbit around the sun, they will never cross it's path (well, at least not until the sun decides to go Red Giant. But that's about 5 billion or so years away). Now, with that said, it takes about 225,000,000 million years for the planetary system to makes it's way around it's orbital period. The planetary system does not orbit in a stationary way, it oscillates it's way through the galaxy. Think of a sine wave, or any wave, moving up and down. That's what happens with us. There are a number of speculative hypotheses that hold more weight then an errant companion star or a "planet" that is huge and can cause destruction. Some of which include passage through the galactic spiral arms and as I said earlier the oscillations through the galactic plane.
I will say, if we did happen to cross the galactic bulge that nobody would live long enough to see what happens due to the intense radiation. If you did happen to live through that, you would get to see first hand what a super-massive galactic black hole can do.
A couple of good reads for the layman of astrophysics/astronomy would be the following:
Death by Black Hole: And other Cosmic Quandaries
By: Dr. Neil de Grasse Tyson
http://www.amazon.com/Death-Black-Ho.../dp/0393062244
Dr. Phil Plaits "Bad Astronomy"
http://www.badastronomy.com/index.html
Just because someone has a Ph.D doesn't mean it's in physics. And just because someone is a "Physicist" doesn't mean they have a Ph.D (They could have an A.S. or a B.S.). It's cool to speculate and imagination stuff, if people didn't we wouldn't be where we are today. However, when the majority of experts in a specific field don't agree with some random dudes hypothesis chances are random dude is a quack.
My jiu-jitsu may suck, but my mathematics and physics is pretty badass. Cheers.