The comet Elenin, now passing through the inner solar system and setting off apocalyptic speculation, will not bring on doomsday in 2012, NASA says.

NASA has issued a statement slapping down wild rumors about the comet, which will make its closest approach to Earth Oct.16.

The comet is only 3 to 5 kilometers wide and is too small to wreak the havoc doomsayers are saying. Elenin's close approach to Earth isn't even that close. Elenin will pass 22 million miles from our planet -- more than 90 times the distance from the Earth to the moon.

The speculation from doomsday prophets that the comet will align with other planets or celestial bodies to cause destruction here on Earth is just not true, the space agency says.

"Any approximate alignments of comet Elenin with other celestial bodies are meaningless, and the comet will not encounter any dark bodies that could perturb its orbit, nor will it influence us in any way here on Earth," said Don Yeomans, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

"Often, comets are portrayed as harbingers of gloom and doom in movies and on television, but most pose no threat to Earth," NASA officials said. "Comet Elenin, the latest comet to visit our inner solar system, is no exception."

Another theory that's popped up is the "marauding brown dwarf doomsday theory" and it's been speculated that Elenin is actually a brown dwarf star in disguise.

"A comet is nothing like a brown dwarf. You are correct that the way astronomers measure the mass of one object is by its gravitational effect on another, but comets are far too small to have a measurable influence on anything," David Morrison of the NASA Astrobiology Institute said.

There is also no truth to the speculation that NASA is conspiring to cover up the comet because it's a harbinger of doom.

"Comet Elenin hasn't received much press precisely because it is small and faint," said the NASA press release. "Several new comets are discovered each year, and you don't normally hear about them either."

"The truth is that Elenin has received much more attention than it deserves due to a variety of Internet postings that are untrue."

It looks like Earth has been spared to spin another day.