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Doomed Again! The Earth's Axis has shifted?
Posted by: hale_bopp on October 10, 2007 at 11:32PM CST
Not quite.  A web site has come to my attention that claims the tilt of the Earth's axis had increased from its normal 23.5 degrees to 49.5 degrees.  Yikes!  That would mess up seasons!

Fortunately, it is utter nonsense.  I make numerous easily repeatable observations to show its not true.  An easy one is finding the North Start.  The axis of our planet's rotation points (very close to) the North Star.  This alignment causes the North Star to always appear in the north, fixed in the sky.  The elevation of the North Star equals your latitude.  Tonight, the North Star is sitting right where it has my whole life.  If this site were correct, it should have moved 26 degrees and it would not stay fixed in the sky!

But the silliness is just beginning!  Here is how he claims the Earth's axis is tilted now.




The Sun is off the left side of the picture and slightly below the center for some reason (note which half of the Earth is in Sunlight).  You may have heard Alaska is the "Land of the Midnight Sun" since it is daylight 24 hours a day in the summer. That is true for latitudes above 67 degrees.  If the axis tilted an additional 26 degrees, the Land of the Midnight Sun would be everything north of 41 degrees!  Racine is at 42.73 degrees...did you have 24 hour daylight there around the Summer Solstice there?  Oh, and you have some time coming up where the Sun never rises as well if this is correct.

I am constantly amazed at what sort of doomsday scenarios make it on the internet.  I even wonder if this is a joke.  I did some IP lookups to see if I could find who put up this site and ran into a dead end at the corporate host.

What really toasts my cheese is that he says all the info comes from NASA, the USGS, NOAA, NWS, and SOHO, dragging all these agencies that do good science through the mud.
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(13) Comments
Posted by: Fish On! on October 11, 2007 12:03AM CST
This sounds similar to some of the things that "Dr." Kent Hovind and his "fellows" like to spout off about. I used to watch his show on the christian channels on cable. I thought he was fascinating, not his theories, just him. Sort of the way I find documentaries about flesh eating bacteria and horrifying tragedies fascinating. You don't like whats being presented to you but you just can't turn away because you're curious to see how much more repulsive it's going to get.

Posted by: Outdoorsman on October 11, 2007 8:53AM CST
Similar to artificial structures on the Moon and Mars....
http://www.metaresearch.org/solar%20system/cydonia/asom/artifact_html/default.htm

LOL....

Posted by: hale_bopp on October 11, 2007 11:29AM CST
It's a good thing you are laughing, Outdoorsman, or I would have a whole new headache debunking the Mars nonsense again!

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has a camera called HiRise capable of resolution of about 1 foot! They are running something called the HiRise Imagine Challenge where students can suggest targets to study. If anyone has children in school and wants to pass this on to your child's teacher, you can find info at

http://quest.nasa.gov/challenges/hirise/

The deadline for the fall challenge just passed, so get your school on board for next the challenge next spring!

Posted by: Dr.JonDavis on October 13, 2007 8:29AM CST
Shifted? It's not Germany, Japan, and Italy anymore????

Posted by: mod pro on May 31, 2008 9:16PM CST
The .Mod file is the video file format used on many digital camcorders, such as the JVC Everio, and the Panasonic D-Snap SD-card camcorders. I have seen all the JVC mod file problems and hope that the following is helpful. MOD files are not MPEG-2 files although the video they contain is MPEG-2 (in the same way that VOB files are not MPEG-2 files). You should use mod converter. The mod converter would help you convert Mod to AVI, MPG, MPEG1, MPEG2, WMV, ASF, DivX, XviD, MP4, VCD, SVCD, DVD-Video, VOB, etc. How to convert mod to avi with the Mod Converter? How to convert split cut join Mod video? How to burn Mod to dvd, mod to vcd, mod to svcd? You have to see the IMPORTANT Tips & Tricks to convert join split cut and burn Mod video. http://www.modconverter.com/ has the solo Mod converter, mod to dvd Burner, Video to MPEG4 converter and Mod joiner. There are enouph tools for you to do all jobs you need to deal with your mod files.

Posted by: crysun on March 30, 2009 1:21AM CST

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