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Watch the end of the world live online via space camera

Why Doomsday Fears Will Survive 2012 'Apocalypse'

In case you're worried about the coming Mayan "New B'ak'tun" on Friday (or would it be "turn of the b'ak'tun"?), and that it may signal the arrival of some world-ending catastrophe from space, the team that runs the Slooh Space Camera has you covered.

Slooh (pronounced slew-oh) is a site that allows members to control various telescopes at participating observatories around the world, to capture images of planets, stars and other astronomical phenomena. Although membership requires a subscription fee, the Slooh staff regularly host public events which are broadcast live and for free over the web (go to http://www.slooh.com and click on Media for a list).

[ Related: NASA confident world won't end on December 21 ]

Starting today, and for each day until Friday, the Slooh team will be broadcasting live to the public as they scan the skies for a different supposed doombringer.

Today's search, which will start at 3 p.m. EST, is for Planet X, also called Nibiru.

According to some, Nibiru is a planet that orbits our Sun with a period of around 3,600 years, and its next pass by the Earth is supposed to be on Friday. At this time, it will apparently either collide with the Earth, utterly destroying it and us, or it will allow Nibiru's (alleged) sentient inhabitants to contact us, perhaps ushering in some new age of enlightenment.

[ Related: How to survive the apocalypse in relative comfort ]

No evidence for the presence or existence of Nibiru has ever been found by astronomers, professional or amateur, although it seems that any claim of a nearby planet (such as the rogue planet discovered 100 light years away) or comet (like last year's Comet Elenin or next year's Comet ISON) cause a slew of claims (some joking, some not) that Nibiru has finally been found. Conspiracy theories about denials, cover-ups and deleted data from sky-maps abound as well, even though anyone looking up into the night sky these days would be able to clearly see a planet that was going to impact with the Earth just three days from now.