(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); A GIANT explosion of energy from the Sun could paralyse Earth in just three years' time, scientists warned yesterday.
They fear a huge solar flare is due to erupt in 2013 - causing blackouts and global chaos.

The once-in-a-century disaster could see power grids crash, communication systems collapse, planes grounded, food supplies hit and the internet shut down.

Everything from home freezers to car sat navs would be affected.

The disaster could mirror the Great Solar Flare of 1859.

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That wreaked horrendous damage across Europe and America - burning out telegraph wires across both continents.
The threat of another disaster - which could mirror scenes in Hollywood blockbuster 2012 - is so great that Defence Secretary Liam Fox called an emergency conference in London yesterday.

Dr Fox told experts that incalcul-able damage would be caused if an explosion similar to the one in 1859 occurred in modern times. He called on scientists to build a strategy against the impending disaster.

The talks, organised by the Electric Infrastructure Security Council, heard that the Sun will reach a critical stage of its cycle in 2013.

A surge of magnetic energy in its atmosphere is likely to trigger radiation storms which cause massive power surges.

Such a phenomenon occurs only once about every 100 years.

The last big flare, in 1859, smothered two thirds of the Earth's skies in a blood-red aurora. Such scenes could occur again, causing cloud storms in major modern cities such as London, Paris and New York.

In 1989, a more common smaller solar flare took out power stations in Quebec, Canada.

In the movie 2012, starring John Cusack, a solar flare causes global temperatures to soar. The planet is then battered by tsunamis and earthquakes, threatening mankind.

Yesterday's conference also heard that a hostile power could cause a similar effect by exploding a nuclear weapon in space.

Dr Fox added: "While we all benefit from scientific advances, so we also create vulnerabilities that can be exploited by our enemies.

"However advanced we become, the chain of our security is only as strong as its weakest link."

Last night the electric security council discussed a plan of action.

And former US government defence adviser Dr Avi Schnurr warned: "A geomagnetic storm could shatter nations all over the earth. We cannot wait for disaster to spur us to action."

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PRECIOUS jewels could rain down during dust storms on faraway planets, scientists say.

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University of St Andrews boffins investigating atmospheric systems believe dust clouds in parts of space could be full of rubies and sapphires.

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Also interestingly, a relevant but different story was posted by another member just 4 months ago You must login or register to view this content..

So, do you guys buy it? Personally I don't, there always seems to be something the scientists want us to (unnecessarily) worry about e.g. as of late, global warming which quite frankly is total BS.

But yeah, comment below what you make of the story and what you'd do if you were given 10 minutes to prepare for the solar flare!

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oh noes no more internet what am i suppose to do? back on topic i heard this 2day too i mean 2012 now 2013 the world is not going to be here much longer 2 much is going on.. if everything is shut down that mean the missles could possible launch we are going to be doomed

There always seems to be one of these world ending disasters about to happen. I'll get worried when I have no food. Until then, I'll slowly party myself to death just incase.

Ohwell were the human race we can survive anything, our ancestors managed to live without any fancy electronic products so I'm sure we can for a week or two. To recover from the solar flare shouldn't take to long once you get a few things running you get everything running. I'm just concerned that my hard drive will be destroyed when this happens, ohwell I just wrap it in tin foil.

OMG, I was hoping I would only go through 2012, now I have to go through 2013, fml

OBVIOUSLY im a gulliable person. A friend told me they took gulliable out of the dictionary.

FACE IT

2012/13....

IT WON'T HAPPEN

even if it does happen the world wont die goverments wont crash and burn... yes average joe would lose there TV microwave pc ect but goverments army defence ect have EMP shelters

and did you know 65% of the time electronics can be saved from EMP.. just by turning them off?

Still don't like those odds! Just imagine if 1 of the world's missiles goes off, that one missile would cause mayhem and the governments wouldn't be able to manually override it because of the EMP. Just one stray missile would cause complete and utter disaster.

all missile silos are EMP (electro magnetic pulse, for people who didnt know) proof and only in the silo can a missile be fired theres more chance of a terrorist hi-jacking the silo than a nuke going away on its own

2012/13 got absoloutly nothing to worry about except at most a dead toaster

same scaremongery like Y2K millenium bug.. IT consultants where on call for 24 hours before and after new years and where getting payed upto £3000 per hour


thers between 0.00 chance and 0.00000001 chance of anything going wrong.. people like to blow things into rediculis preportions without even knowing basic facts of the topic in hand


and also i noticed the post about global warming... its not BS it happens around every 5-5.5 million years naturally but we are burning oils ect that bring the tempature up faster carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide are all natural to our planet mostly from volcanos in the past but now 1 year humans burn the same gasses as 3 semi-large eruptions that happen naturally every 125 years

in conculsion we are speeding up global warming by around 1.3x million times

I'm not denying climate change, however I am denying global warming. A lot of the stuff the scientists have come up with is total BS but I really cba to argue about this with another person /facepalm