A Look At How The Sun Can Bring Us All Back To The 'Stone Age'

Gizmodo: What Would Happen if a Massive Solar Storm Hit the Earth?

We all know that major storms can wreak havoc, flooding cities and decimating infrastructure. But there’s an even bigger worry than wind and rain: space weather. If a massive solar storm hit us, our technology would be wiped out. The entire planet could go dark.

“We’re much more reliant on technology these days that is vulnerable to space weather than we were in the past,” said Thomas Berger, director of the Space Weather Prediction Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He told Gizmodo, “If we were hit by an extreme event today, it’d be very difficult to respond.”

“Solar storm” is a generic term used to describe a bunch of stuff the Sun hurls our way, including x-rays, charged particles, and magnetized plasma. A massive solar storm hasn’t hit the Earth since the mid-19th century, but space weather scientists are very worried about the possibility of another.

WNU Editor: I always point to the sun as the main reason for climate change (not man-made activity) .... but severe solar storms can have a far more severe impact .... an event that has happened in the past, and will probably happen in the future.

CNN Has A Video That They Will Play When The World Ends

Jalopnik: This Is The Video CNN Will Play When The World Ends

Update: Does CNN really have a video ready for the apocalypse? (BBC)

WNU Editor: I am sure Ted Turner had a hand in producing it. But if the "end of the world" was approaching .... the last thing that I would be doing is watching CNN.

Update #2: As to what will I be doing .... Golf course .... with my GF .... drinking/tasting my most expensive scotch/cognac/wine.

The End Of The World On 16 March 2880?

Making a movie about the threat of an asteroid impact dates back far longer than most are aware of. (credit: despair.com)

Huge Asteroid That 'Could End Human Life' Defying Gravity As It Moves Towards Earth, Scientists Say -- The Independent

'One in 19,800 chance' that asteroid 1950 DA could hit planet on 16 March 2880

Scientists have moved closer to being able to stop a huge asteroid colliding with the Earth and potentially wiping out human life.

Researchers at the University of Tennessee have discovered that blowing the space rock up could make the collision worse by causing several devastating impacts.

Instead, small changes could be made to its surface to disrupt the forces keeping it together and cause it to break up in outer space.

They were studying asteroid 1950 DA, which first became infamous in 2002 when astronomers estimated it had a one in 300 chance of hitting the planet on 16 March, 2880. However, the odds of a collision were later revised to a more reassuring one in 19,800.

Read more ....

My Comment: I am not worried .... everything will work out.

Is This The 'End Of Days'?

APOCALYPSE NOW: Why A Rare Astrological Event TONIGHT Could Herald The 'End Of Days' -- Express

IF YOU'RE feeling out of sorts today don't worry, it isn't just you.

Mars, Earth, and the Sun will all align tonight, a rare 'opposition of the planets' that only happens once every 778 days.

But what makes this so remarkable is that it comes precisely a week before everyone on earth will see the first of FOUR dark red 'blood moons', an extraordinary event some Christians believe represents the End of Days and the second coming of Christ.

The King James Bible predicts: "The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD comes," [Joel 2:31].

And, according to NASA, a highly unusual 'Tetrad' - four successive total 'blood-red' lunar eclipses each followed by six full moons - will, indeed, start a week today and finish on September 28 next year.

Read more ....

My Comment: As a lifelong amateur astronomer .... I love these events. Unfortunately .... it has been cloudy in my neck of the woods all day and now all night. As to the "End of Days" .... I suspect that I am still going to be blogging in the weeks/months/and years ahead.

The End Of The World Will Be In The Form Of Killer Robots And Crippling Cyber Attacks

Killer Robots And Crippling Cyber Attacks: How The World Is Going To End - According To Super Brains Such As Stephen Hawking -- Daily Mail

* Members of a society, which includes Stephen Hawking and Robert May, will identify threats to humanity and devise ways of ensuring its survival
* The Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) is led by the Astronomer Royal and Cambridge don Martin Rees
* Lord Rees believes the main threats to sustained human existence now come from people, not from nature

They are an improbable group of superheroes. But some of Britain's greatest minds have got together to focus their powers on saving humanity from itself.

Led by the Astronomer Royal and Cambridge don Martin Rees, famous thinkers such as physicist Stephen Hawking and former Government chief scientist Robert May have formed a society to draw up a doomsday list of risks that could wipe out mankind.

From crippling cyber-attacks by terrorists using the internet to cause havoc, to the release of engineered diseases and killer computers, they warn the future is far from rosy.

Read more ....

Update #1: If the end of the world were nigh, you’d want the world’s biggest brains trying to stop it. And that’s exactly what's happening -- The Independent
Update #2: Cambridge research project will assess threats to human existence -- Financial Times

WNU Editor: The website for the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk is here. As to what is my own take on the end of the world .... the world will not end with a bang, but with a whimper.

An Environmental Apocalypse Soon?

Tojo, Indonesia: A villager walks through a burnt forest after a slash and burn practice to open the land for agriculture. Photograph: Yusuf Ahmad/Reuters

Apocalypse Soon: Has Civilization Passed The Environmental Point Of No Return? -- Scientific American

Although there is an urban legend that the world will end this year based on a misinterpretation of the Mayan calendar, some researchers think a 40-year-old computer program that predicts a collapse of socioeconomic order and massive drop in human population in this century may be on target.

Remember how Wile E. Coyote, in his obsessive pursuit of the Road Runner, would fall off a cliff? The hapless predator ran straight out off the edge, stopped in midair as only an animated character could, looked beneath him in an eye-popping moment of truth, and plummeted straight down into a puff of dust. Splat!

Read more ....

My Comment: I have always been a skeptic of such predictions .... believing that man and nature will always find ways to overcome such obstacles and limitations. In fact .... we are already experiencing depopulation in many first world nations .... and it has nothing to do with changes in the environment but changes in social behavior and personal decisions.

Getting Ready For The End Of The World

Buried deep underneath the Kansas prairie is an Atlas-F missile silo that one developer has filled with luxury condos he's selling to wealthy people who want protection from what they imagine is a coming doomsday scenario. Getty Images/Photo Researchers

Cold War Missile Silo Becomes Doomsday-Ready Luxury Homes -- NBC Chicago

$2 million may be a small price to pay to weather the end of civilization as we know it in comfort.

Want to prepare for the end of the world in style? A Kansas developer has just the nuclear missile silo — er, make that underground luxury condo — for you.

Larry Hall has built one such abandoned Cold War-era silo in Kansas into 14 floors of plush condominium housing, replete with a pool, movie theater, library, indoor farm and — eventually — a medical center and school, AFP reported.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: I suspect that for some with money .... this is a tempting offer. More info can be found here.