A Question of Science (Or Whatever)

[SweptbackFlame]

So I just finished watching "Knowing" a movie featuring Nicolas Cage. The movie is about catastrophic events, such as 911, and more destructive events. And in this film the end of the world.

If you don't care for the movie read on...but for those who want to see it don't read on or else get spoiled...

Anyways The end of the world was supposedly made by a super flare, conducted by the sun itself...and completely destroy the earth's crust.

Now the question is, can that even be possible to have such a Flare completely obliterate humanity...

Apparently it's happened in 1859, but not on an apocalyptic scale...but some believe it destroyed part of our ozone layer.

What do you guys think? I'm just really curious as to what you guys believe if this could actually happen.

 

[Zephyrus]

Unless we somehow shut down the Earth's magnetic field, we'll be safe from that.

Solar flares strongly influence the local space weather of the Earth. They produce streams of highly energetic particles in the solar wind and the Earth's magnetosphere that can present radiation hazards to spacecraft and astronauts. The soft X-ray flux of X class flares increases the ionisation of the upper atmosphere, which can interfere with short-wave radio communication and can increase the drag on low orbiting satellites, leading to orbital decay. Energetic particles in the magnetosphere contribute to the aurora borealis and aurora australis.
Solar flares release a cascade of high energy particles known as a proton storm. Protons can pass through the human body, doing biochemical damage.[2] The proton storms are produced in the solar wind, 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,[3] taking only 15 minutes after observation to reach Earth, indicating a velocity of approximately one-third light speed.

 

[Dak]

The damage from solar flares has more to do with the natural disaster causing potential they have on earth as opposed to a direct effect of flame broiling the planet.

 

[Chanakya]

I really wanna see them Polar Auroras. You might want to read up on The Van Allen belt

 

[Death Aflame]

Off topic: Knowing was little more than a sci-fi rendering of Noah's Ark, pretty bad movie imho.

 

[that one guy]

The Sun runs by fusing hydrogen atoms into helium atoms. The true end of the world will come when the Sun runs out of its fuel, being hydrogen. It will start converting helium into carbon, and the sun will heat up and expand, so large that it will envelop the orbits of Mercury, Venus, and come within a stone's throw of the Earth's. It will completely melt the planet's crust, ending all life as we have come to know it. A solar flare could damage the earth's atmosphere, but I don't think that one could abruptly end all life on Earth.

 

[Pessimism]

Red Giant for the win!

 

[Krigloch the Furious]

sure it probably cant happen, but I enjoyed the movie.
That's a long way for a solar flare

 

[arg]

just saw this movie. it was quite engaging. it would suck to have earth toasted by a solar flare.