World 2012: Killer solar flares are a physical impossibility.

[tom_mai78101]

(PhysOrg.com) -- Given a legitimate need to protect Earth from the most intense forms of space weather – great bursts of electromagnetic energy and particles that can sometimes stream from the sun – some people worry that a gigantic "killer solar flare" could hurl enough energy to destroy Earth. Citing the accurate fact that solar activity is currently ramping up in its standard 11-year cycle, there are those who believe that 2012 could be coincident with such a flare.

But this same solar cycle has occurred over millennia. Anyone over the age of 11 has already lived through such a solar maximum with no harm. In addition, the next solar maximum is predicted to occur in late 2013 or early 2014, not 2012.

Most importantly, however, there simply isn't enough energy in the sun to send a killer fireball 93 million miles to destroy Earth.

This is not to say that space weather can't affect our planet. The explosive heat of a solar flare can't make it all the way to our globe, but electromagnetic radiation and energetic particles certainly can. Solar flares can temporarily alter the upper atmosphere creating disruptions with signal transmission from, say, a GPS satellite to Earth causing it to be off by many yards. Another phenomenon produced by the sun could be even more disruptive. Known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), these solar explosions propel bursts of particles and electromagnetic fluctuations into Earth's atmosphere. Those fluctuations could induce electric fluctuations at ground level that could blow out transformers in power grids. The CME's particles can also collide with crucial electronics onboard a satellite and disrupt its systems.

Read more here.

 

[13lade619]

Those fluctuations could induce electric fluctuations at ground level that could blow out transformers in power grids. The CME's particles can also collide with crucial electronics onboard a satellite and disrupt its systems.

Sure... those don't kill people.

 

[D.V.D]

Yes but people used the 2012 solar flare as a excuse for the world to end meaning that everything on the planet dies due to really high tempartures (explosions or lava or whatever they're theory is ).

 

[MasterOfRa]

Most importantly, however, there simply isn't enough energy in the sun to send a killer fireball 93 million miles to destroy Earth.

Uhm, what? Although it could technically happen to THROW a fireball of that size, How could anyone even suggest that there is not enough ENERGY in the SUN, to destroy the EARTH, when we all know in 5 billion years it will expand into what is basically a fireball, plenty more than 93 million miles across, and will certainly destroy the earth? I mean come on..

 

[D.V.D]

Uhm, what? Although it could technically happen to THROW a fireball of that size, How could anyone even suggest that there is not enough ENERGY in the SUN, to destroy the EARTH, when we all know in 5 billion years it will expand into what is basically a fireball, plenty more than 93 million miles across, and will certainly destroy the earth? I mean come on..

I think they mean enough energy for it to expell in a form of a solar flare. Ofcourse the sun has enough energy to burn up the whole solar system but it won't use that much energy in a solarflare atleast I think thats what they're trying to say.