2012: No Killer Solar Flare

Can Our Sun Produce a Killer Flare?

The short answer to this is "no".

The longer answer is a little more involved. Whilst a solar flare from out Sun, 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, certainly not in 2012. I dare say, in the far future when the Sun begins to run out of fuel and swell into a red giant, it might be a bad era for life on Earth, but we have a few billion years to wait for that to happen. There could even be the possibility of several X-class flares being launched and by pure bad luck we may get hit by a series of CMEs and X-ray bursts, but none will be powerful to overcome our magnetosphere, ionosphere and thick atmosphere below.

Source



[edit on 15-7-2009 by Sliick]

I searched and only found evidence pointing to our doom. I figured it was time to post some info on the other side of the flare as it were.

The article is long, but definitely worth a read.

[edit on 15-7-2009 by Sliick]

In response to Sliick's link, keep in mind that scientists who say never are often proved wrong. It's always just a matter of time before current fact becomes tomorrow's laughable history.

it was my understanding that a powerful flare could hit, it just wouldn't cause the earth to "cook"

I have to wonder if it's the opposite. With all the inacitvity lately with the sun, maybe we're heading towards another ice age. Could this be why the Mayan calendar ends in 2012 and will usher in a new age...or should I say ice age?

Originally posted by Sliick
it was my understanding that a powerful flare could hit, it just wouldn't cause the earth to "cook"

I guess the director of 'Knowing' let his imagination run a little wild.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/a1e571157b96.jpg[/atsimg]


[edit on 18-7-2009 by BlueShaman]

This is an article I found on NASA's website while searching out 2012 information.

Link - science.nasa.gov...

From the beginning of the article -

"March 10, 2006: It's official: Solar minimum has arrived. Sunspots have all but vanished. Solar flares are nonexistent. The sun is utterly quiet.

Like the quiet before a storm.

This week researchers announced that a storm is coming--the most intense solar maximum in fifty years. The prediction comes from a team led by Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). "The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one," she says. If correct, the years ahead could produce a burst of solar activity second only to the historic Solar Max of 1958."


The article goes on to predict the next Solar Max at around 2012.

My question would be this - If the galactic alignment is occurring at the same time, could it produce disruptions in our magnetosphere that would weaken it enough for these flares to be a serious problem?

reply to post by OrwellWasAnOptimist

That prediction is three years old. It has been updated.

The panel predicts the upcoming Solar Cycle 24 will peak in May 2013 with 90 sunspots per day, averaged over a month. If the prediction proves true, Solar Cycle 24 will be the weakest cycle since number 16, which peaked at 78 daily sunspots in 1928, and ninth weakest since the 1750s, when numbered cycles began.

spaceweather.com...

reply to post by Sliick


i disagree that our Sun could not produce a killer flare. Killing comes in many forms and the most likely scenario IMHO is that a big flare could knock out power supplies for a long period.

This itself could cause a catastrophe. we have never been so dependant on Electricity as we are now.

The 1859 storm caused major damage as documented here -

www.space.com...

Society back then did not notice the storm the way it would today. The telegraph was 15 years old. There were no satellite TV feeds, no automated teller machines relying on orbiting relay stations, and no power grids

I guess there are many factors that come into play as to whether we will be seriously affected.

In this case it seems like it was the speed of the Plasma Ejection hurtling towards our planet that made the difference.

The blob came at exceptionally high speeds. It took only 17 hours and 40 minutes to go from the Sun to Earth." Solar storms typically take two to four days to traverse the 93 million miles (150 million kilometers).

Aircraft also, may be highly affected if this scenario were to happen again. If we can interefere with Aviation Communications with cellphones, then imagine what a huge Sloar Flare could do??

Scientists using NASA's Swift satellite have spotted a stellar flare on a nearby star so powerful that, had it been from our sun, it would have triggered a mass extinction on Earth. The flare was perhaps the most energetic magnetic stellar explosion ever detected.

The flare was seen in December 2005 on a star slightly less massive than the sun, in a two-star system called II Pegasi in the constellation Pegasus. It was about a hundred million times more energetic than the sun's typical solar flare, releasing energy equivalent to about 50 million trillion atomic bombs.

Fortunately, our sun is now a stable star that doesn't produce such powerful flares. And II Pegasi is at a safe distance of about 135 light-years from Earth.

Yet they have no idea what caused the flare in the first place, the standard theory of the sun falls far short in explaining even the simplest of solar phenomena. I have little faith in it's predictive power.
Although the lack of sunspots was predicted by a minority. This does not mean you have a complete theory though.

I don't think we'll be wiped out by a killer solar flare anytime soon, it's just the absoluteness of how these things are presented is what agitates me. Especially when the track record of predictive failure is so prevalent.

Forgot the link, www.universetoday.com...

Have to add this as well for a bit of perspective.
www.thunderbolts.info...


[edit on 19-7-2009 by squiz]

you say if there is a solar flare we would not be killed or harmed in any way other than our satellites... but you also forgot to add in the fact that the poles are in the process of switching (north being south, south being north) and in the process or magnetic fields will be out and done and to weak to do any thing but to keep out small amounts of radiation and X-rays.. granted the poles are holding up strong right now.. but something dramatic can happen in the next 3 years and cause a major sudden switch in the poles severly weakening our magnet fields there fore a solar flare would most likely hurt us bad