http://kotaku.com/#!5762943/the-massive ... ng-started

I called it. I reckon it'll get worse, buidling up slowly over the next few months or so. Discuss.

Watch this video on Youtube.


Watch this video on Youtube.


Watch this video on Youtube.


Watch this video on Youtube.


Watch this video on Youtube.

1st video: Out Sun is nowhere near that big in relation to the separation. It's radius is about 1/100th of the Earth orbit distance. Even if that solar flare was 10x the diameter of the star, it would only reach 20% of the way to Mercury.

2 - Looks like it would be the red giant phase (which would, admittedly, kill us good and proper), but that's 4.5billion years off yet (i.e, the Sun is only halfway through its main sequence lifetime).

3 - LOLNO. To cause a stable black hole you need to get past all different kinds of pressures that mean they really don't want to get that close. The most powerful of these that is really known about is neutron degeneracy pressure, and for gravity to overcome that you need about 5 solar masses with no form of support (i.e the Sun is supported by thermal pressure from fusion). There was some talk of whether the LHC would create unstable micro-singularities, which are a bit like black holes, in that they cannot directly be observed, but it would be impossible for them to damage the LHC track, let only destroy the planet (also, an actual black hole would do it much quicker than that).

4,5 - not physics, lol.

As for the whole solar flare thing, yes, this is actually happening. It poses no real threat to our lives, but will get screwy with electronics. The most obvious thing to see would be the Aurora Borealis coming quite far South (the Auroras are caused by solar flares normally, more powerful = bigger and brighter). Infact, if the sky is clear, you may be able to see it in Britain, tonight, apparently.

The other main thing solar flares can do is <LOOK MA, I AM SWEARING> with satellites. Satellites don't have the wonderful protection of out magnetosphere, so can get pretty screwed over by the plasma (ionised gas) stream causes all kinds of chaos with their systems. GPS would be the most affected.

On Earth, you may see things like large currents and power outages here and there, but I'm not really sure on those and I don't think they are hugely likely.

TL;DR - don't panic, just some pretty lights and slightly screwy electronics every now and again for a couple of years.

WHAT IF I'M DISCONNECTED IN SC2 DURING A LADDER MATCH!?!? D; ITS THE END

ffs swine flu will kill us all anyway !! !11 1

Fortunately I don't think there's any risk of us being fried ala Knowing.

Swine Flu? Nah, it's 2012 that'll get us. Or the Bird Flu... or the Cow Flu (to be infecting in a population near you soon!).

omg midget flu wtf !!!1 11!

Zombie virus.

Now THAT is my kind of apocalypse. BRB getting mah Hunting Rifle and Pistol.

Space has a south :3

No, the planet does. The Aurora Borealis is concentrated around the magnetic North pole, seeing as it's to do with charged particles being bound to field lines entering the atmosphere.