Near Miss in 2012

Remember all that talk about the world coming to an end in 2012?  Well, it turns out it almost did!

A solar storm narrowly missed us that would have put out our electricity for months...effectively ending the world as we know it.

Fierce solar blasts that could have badly damaged electrical grids and disabled satellites in space narrowly missed Earth in 2012, researchers say.

The bursts would have wreaked havoc on the Earth's magnetic field, matching the severity of the 1859 Carrington event, the largest solar magnetic storm ever reported on the planet. That blast knocked out the telegraph system across the United States, according to University of California, Berkeley research physicist Janet Luhmann.

"Had it hit Earth, it probably would have been like the big one in 1859, but the effect today, with our modern technologies, would have been tremendous," Luhmann said.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/destructive-solar-blasts-narrowly-missed-earth-in-2012-scientists-20140320-hvklp.html#ixzz2wSH9NHLy