This is Gerard Le Flamand and I dedicated this blog to prepare for the disastrous events to happen in 2012.Solar Maximum and The End of the World
Like most of the various ways the world is going to end in 2012, the possibility of the Sun blasting out is huge. There is a connection between the 11-year solar cycle and the time cycles seen in the Mayan calendar. Plus, religious texts (such as the Bible) say that we are due for a day of judgment, involving a lot of fire and brimstone.
What are the chances to get roasted alive by the sun on December 2012?
Solar physicist David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center prognoses that peak of the most intense solar cycle in the last 50 years is going to be in 2010 or 2012. The peak of the sun 11-year cycle, called “solar maximum“, so we can expect even more solar activity in the next few years.
According to American Geophysical Union, the next Solar Maximum should to peak around 2010 with a sunspot number of 160 plus or minus 25. This would make it one of the strongest solar cycles of the past fifty years—which is to say, one of the strongest in recorded history.
Hathaway explains: “When a gust of solar wind hits Earth’s magnetic field, the impact causes the magnetic field to shake. If it shakes hard enough, we call it a geomagnetic storm.” In the extreme, these storms cause power outages and make compass needles swing in the wrong direction. Auroras are just a beautiful side-effect.
Can Our Sun Produce a Killer Flare?
Normally a solar flare aimed directly at us, could cause secondary problems such as satellite damage and injury to unprotected astronauts and blackouts, the flare itself is not powerful enough to destroy Earth. We have a few billion years before Sun will swell into a red giant and destroy everything alive on Earth. At the same time there is the possibility of several X-class flares being launched and by pure bad luck we may get hit by a series of CMEs (coronal mass ejection) and X-ray bursts. But the chances they will be powerful to overcome our magnetosphere, ionosphere are relatively small. Even if a big flare did hit us, it will not be an extinction event. Yes, satellites may be damaged, causing secondary problems such as a GPS loss (which might disrupt air traffic control for example) or national power grids may be overwhelmed by aurora electro jets, but nothing more extreme than that.
So…
Will be the end of the world in 2012 caused by Sun?
Short answer is no. At this moment there is no physical way to say that the Earth will be hit by any flare, let alone a big one in 2012. Even if a big flare did hit us, it will not be an extinction event.
Tagged with: 2012 • Solar Maximum
Filed under: Global Catastrophe • Predictions • Solar Maximum 2012
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Concerning the solar maximum why do people who think something extraordianry will take place in 2012 say the sun is going to be the worst it has ever been scientists ahve changed there predictions and said that the solar maximum will be weaker rather than then stronger as they once thought
Glenn
Great article. Thanks for the great resource.
Good article – plenty of food for thought.
Good post! I plan to move into this stuff after I’m done with school, as most of it is time consuming. It’s a great post to reference back to. My blog needs more time to gain in popularity anyway.