Video: This Morning There Was a Massive Solar Explosion

wow. its beautiful. i bet this has something to do with the Mayan predictions and the dawning of a new era. exactly how big was it? i'm pretty sure that it was bigger than the earth itself.

I bet it had absolutely nothing to do with Mayans or predictions of end of the world - which have so far had a 100% failure rate.

I bet it has everything to do with absolutely normal activity that occurs on the sun all the time, has occurred since before humans evolved, and will occur way after we're either extinct or completely unrecognizable.

Cool vid of the sun jizzing.

over 1 million earths could fit inside the sun. This burst looks to be a lot bigger than the earth...

Cool. But what is this doing in the technology section instead of science?

@Matt5327
Exactly what I'm thinking lol.

@JediMindSet: The scientists that predicted the 2012 date said they miscalculated, and that the Mayans predicted the end of the world some time in 2200.

@User: That was very funny. ▲Bruno▲

did it do anything to earth? the magnetic shock wave?

Interesting phenomena and he said it occurred at 7am UTC?

"And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;" Luke 21:25

People people, chill. This is not the end of the world. Now, events don't happens like this all the time, but much more violent and dangerous ones do. The earth was probably not affected, but communications might have gone down briefly in some places. Everything's alright, this explosion is just a sign of another solar prominence (Which, again, have been happening for a long, long time.). ▲Bruno▲

@amos33
if you go to the website apparently there was a bigger one in 2006, is it the end of the world yet? its been like 5 years?

@amos33

It also says there will be wars and rumors of wars... it's getting at the main point that no one will know. Anyone who attempts to predict is going to miss.

what if this gives us super powers like the X-Men? could speed up evolution if there is such a thing.

@ JediMindset

X-men were born with their powers, Fantastic Four got their powers through a solar storm......

I am the last mayan, BOW BEFORE MY AWESOME PREMONITIONS!!!

@Garbageman
oh yeah lol. my bad. i was also thinking about that one show "Heroes".

Solar Storms are set to peak in 2013, so we will be seeing an increase in activity like this in the next couple years. In theory, a solar flare could be big enough to fry a good amount of electronics and cause some serious damage as it did in 1859 frying phone lines and setting poles on fire. If we had the electric infrastructure we do now it would have been devastating. We are also supposedly getting hit with a huge solar flare in 2012 speaking of, coming from the center of the galaxy right as we align with it for the first time in over 28,000 years. My mind giggles at the idea that this could awaken dormant "super" powers however far fetched it may sound in all reality.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." Einstein

"These particles can impact the Earth's magnetosphere, and present radiation hazards to spacecraft, astronauts and cosmonauts. Energetic protons can pass through the human body, causing biochemical damage, and hence present a hazard to astronauts during interplanetary travel. Most proton storms take two or more hours from the time of visual detection to reach Earth's orbit. A solar flare on January 20, 2005 released the highest concentration of protons ever directly measured, taking only 15 minutes after observation to reach Earth, indicating a velocity of approximately one-third light speed, giving astronauts as little as 15 minutes to reach shelter."

"The most powerful flare ever observed was the first one to be observed, on September 1, 1859, and was reported by British astronomer Richard Carrington and independently by an independent observer named Richard Hodgson. The event is named the Solar storm of 1859, or the "Carrington event". The flare was visible to a naked-eye (in white light), and produced stunning auroras down to tropical latitudes such as Cuba or Hawaii, and set telegraph systems on fire."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_flare

OMG typo it isn't a solar flare that is hitting in 2012, I used the wrong term although solar intensity will increase in that period. I think but may be wrong it is a large gamma ray burst hitting us in 2012.

I was doing some research on this to verify the 2012 comment since it was just overheard, and found this useful question and answer on Nasa's website about 2012 and other astrophysics questions. It seems it is mainly a hoax and as far as he knows we are not entering any kind of alignment in 2012 nor is there any intensity of gamma rays, etc, predicted at the time of that Q & A. Also another point of interest, he said that solar peaks happen roughly every 11 years, so maybe it won't be to bad in the 2012 peak, interesting none the less though.

http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/ask-an-astrobiologist/intro/nibiru-and-doomsday-2012-questions-and-answers

Where has it been proven we humans have evolved? Our lord created earth as it reads in the bible and your nonsense has no backing otherwise. Your views need to come with some facts of evolution. Our children have been lied too now for 40 years plus and every public school book proves it because of people like you. Do not post something unless you have the facts to back it up. My research has shown every time evolution has been challenged it has failed scientifically. As for the bible it has yet to be proven wrong.

rstarkov wrote......

I bet it had absolutely nothing to do with Mayans or predictions of end of the world - which have so far had a 100% failure rate.

I bet it has everything to do with absolutely normal activity that occurs on the sun all the time, has occurred since before humans evolved, and will occur way after we're either extinct or completely unrecognizable.

does anybody see anythning wrong with nilbuster's comment?...you claim evolution is nonsese because it has no facts to back it up but neither does the bible. Evolution is a widely accepted theory because it has some evidence to support it. However, it has not become a theorem because there hasn't been that one piece of evidence that proves it entirely. as far as I'm concerned the bible has no evidence supporting what it claims and yet when you bring that up, people usually answer you with "you have to have faith," or "you just have to believe." It doesn't make sense. what we have to start saying to the religious when they dismiss the theory of evolution because they claim that "that nonsense has no proof," is "you just have to believe."

always been a loyal reader of popsci but i joined just to answer to this comment...the fallacy was inexcusable

damn here come the evolution fights again, shut up the two of you, tired of hearing this argument go find the other 200 comment pages that have thsi same arguement, nilbuster stop trolling, karloz91 stop feeding the trolls!!!!!!!!

@lanredneck

lol notice how the religious fanatics are almost always the ones who start it. yea i agree its getting out of control. i see it occurring on many articles. neither god or evolution can be tested and observed. all we have is theories, opinions and intelligent facts.

@1134

nasa often lies about things. im not saying that they are evil but they cover up some truth in what they know and tell us. So don't take their word for it. they are affiliated with the Illuminati.

It looked like someone kick up a cloud of dust.... It must have been " big foot " roaming around the sun.... That probably was a bunch of earths in that clod of "dust"... Nope, could'nt have been evolution. There is no such thing...except in little minds, like kids...

Robert1234: When Einstein said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." it just proved the smartest man on earth could make really stupid statements. As for the Mayans, they just ran out of rock, nothing more. Hell, my calendar stopped with December 31, 2010 and the world kept going. That said, the end of the world is approaching and it's not biblical, it's economic and ecological. With a 5 deg. F. rise in average temperature the climate will destroy most of what mankind has built, stop agriculture in it's tracks and the resulting disease, hunger and wars will pretty much set man back to the dark ages, if not eliminate him totally with a good old fashioned plague. We're over the hump and there is nothing we can do to stop it. Not that we'll really try anyway, will we?

SUNJIZZ!!!