The New York Times reports that NASA has confirmed that December 21, 2012 will not be the end of Earth. The same announcement was made by the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) last year. What a relief!

CERN’s original announcement was made to counteract fears that the new Large Hadron Collider would not create a black hole that would swallow up the Earth. The fears NASA was eesponding to regard the end of the 5,125-year Mayan calendar cycle, which is set to end on December 21, 2012.

The doomsday buzz reached a high point with the release of the new movie “2012,” directed by Roland Emmerich, who previously inflicted misery on the Earth from aliens and glaciers in “Independence Day” and “The Day After Tomorrow.”

In the movie, an alignment between the Sun and the center of the galaxy on Dec. 21, 2012, causes the Sun to go berserk with mighty storms on its surface that pour out huge numbers of the elusive subatomic particles known as neutrinos. Somehow the neutrinos transmute into other particles and heat up the Earth’s core. The Earth’s crust loses its moorings and begins to weaken and slide around. Los Angeles falls into the ocean; Yellowstone blows up, showering the continent with black ash. Tidal waves wash over the Himalayas, where the governments of the planet have secretly built a fleet of arks in which a select 400,000 people can ride out the storm.

This is just one of thousands of theories about the end of the world, all of which scientists have labeled “bunk”. So I guess we can just keep living our lives, after all.

Photo (via rosenblumtv)