End of the world on 12/21/12

End of the world on 12/21/12? Not just yet, says the Vatican's top astronomer. (+video)

The director of the Vatican Observatory dismissed talk of a Mayan doomsday on Dec. 21, 2012, saying that the end of the Earth, if it happens, is billions But while the idea that Earth could be shattered into a billion pieces by some sort of interplanetary cataclysm has worried millions of people around the world, the Holy See's chief astronomer suggests that life as we know it is unlikely to come to an end quite so soon.

In an editorial in the Vatican's official daily newspaper,L'Osservatore Romano – in an issue whose front-page article was entitled “The end is not nigh – at least for now” – Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the director of the Vatican Observatory, criticized "pseudo-prophecies" about the end of the Universe.of years away.

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