We were WARNED 2012 End of the World

Apocalyptic Hail Storm in Texas

2012-06-14T21:06:00.001-07:00

Look how huge this hail was! Apocalyptic Hail Storm in Texas!

2012 Something Is Going On!

2012-06-05T23:47:00.000-07:00

New Possible Signs That The World Is Coming To An End!? (Dead Species, Global Warming, Strange Sounds Being Heard + More)

Iceberg flipping over effects 2012

2012-06-05T23:15:00.002-07:00

This Iceberg was "calved" by Argentina's Uppsala glacier. While we were passing by it with a catamaran, the huge berg lost a part of itself (look at the right side sinking) and then flipped over with a huge roar. In the process of melting this happens all the time, but it is seldom that it is captured on video WHEN it happens...
March 2012...

five dead in Oklahoma as tornadoes pound U.S. Plains

2012-04-16T19:23:00.001-07:00

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - Rescue and clean-up efforts were underway across the Midwest on Sunday after dozens of tornados tore through the region, killing at least five people in Oklahoma, leaving thousands without power in Kansas and damaging up to 90 percent of the homes and buildings in one small Iowa town.
Storms skipped across what is often called "Tornado Alley" in the U.S. Central and Southern Plains, but the high winds and dozens of tornados mostly struck rural areas, sparing the region from even worse damage.
The stormy weekend isn't over yet for the Midwest - there is a moderate risk of more "significant" tornadoes later Sunday afternoon from southeast Minnesota through a large part of Wisconsin and northeast Iowa, according to National Storm Prediction Center meteorologist Greg Dial.

Damaging thunderstorms are also predicted from Minnesota south to Texas into Sunday night, according to AccuWeather.com.
Earlier Sunday, a twister struck the northwest Oklahoma city of Woodward, where storm sirens failed to sound after lightning apparently disabled its warning system, Mayor Roscoe Hill said.

A total of 29 people were treated at Woodward Regional Hospital, chief executive officer Dave Wallace said. Of these, five were in critical condition and moved to other hospitals.
Two children died at a mobile home park in Woodward, a town of 12,000 people, while two adults were killed in a small community just outside the city limits, Hill said. Details of the fifth death were not immediately known, said Keli Cain, spokeswoman for Oklahoma Emergency Management.
"This thing took us by surprise," Hill said. "It's kind of overwhelming."
Woodward city manager Alan Riffel told CNN that all the missing people had been accounted for, and that 89 homes and 13 businesses had been destroyed.
A tornado that struck Woodward in April 1947 still ranks as the deadliest in Oklahoma history, with 116 people killed, according to the National Weather Service.
In tiny Thurman, Iowa, population 250, an estimated 75 to 90 percent of the town's buildings and homes were damaged or destroyed by the storm, Freemont County Emergency Management Coordinator Mike Crecelius said. Only minor injuries were reported.
98 TORNADOES
The National Storm Prediction Center had an unofficial count of 98 tornadoes in Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Oklahoma, starting Saturday morning and going until early Sunday.
In Kansas, Governor Sam Brownback declared a state of emergency as officials assessed storm damage.
No deaths or serious injuries were reported in Kansas, but about 11,000 people were reported without power, most of them around Wichita, Sharon Watson, a spokesperson for the state's National Guard and emergency services, said in a news release.
The storm damaged a hangar at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita and destroyed several homes around the area, authorities said.
Storm chaser Brandon Redmond, a meteorologist with the Severe Weather Alert Team, said the twister passed over his vehicle and lifted it 2 feet (60 cm) off the ground in an industrial area south of Wichita, the state's second-largest metropolitan area after the Kansas City metro area.
"The tornado literally formed over our vehicle," he told Reuters. "I've never been that scared in my life. ... We had power flashes all around us and debris circulating all around the vehicle, sheet metal, parts of a roof, plywood."
Sedgwick County Commission Chairman Tim Norton said the tornado missed downtown Wichita and heavily populated neighborhoods and passed through areas to the south and east where there are manufacturing businesses and mobile home parks.
"With the storms we saw coming our way, it could have been much worse," Norton said. "We lucked out."
The damage included a Spirit Aerosystems production facility that manufactures fuselages for Boeing's 7-series airplanes. A Spirit spokesman said the facility was shut down on Sunday after a tornado damaged the roof and knocked out power, but the company hoped to have the plant running again soon.
"We do believe that the majority of the operational capabilities and facilities are intact," spokesman Ken Evans said.
A Boeing spokesman said the company had been in touch with Spirit to assess the situation.
The U.S. tornado season started early this year, with twisters already blamed for 62 deaths in 2012 in the Midwest and South, raising concerns that this year would be a repeat of 2011, the deadliest tornado year in nearly a century.
Some 550 people died in tornadoes last year, including 316 killed in an April outbreak in five Southern states, and 161 people in Joplin, Missouri, the following month.
source: click here

Earthquake Tsunami Waves in Indonesia

2012-04-11T19:52:00.001-07:00

Big quake strikes off Indonesia April 2012

2012-04-11T02:36:00.002-07:00

Big quake strikes off Indonesia, tsunami warning issued

An earthquake of 8.7 magnitude struck off the coast of Indonesia on Wednesday, sending residents there and in India dashing out of their homes and offices in fear. A tsunami warning was issued for the whole Indian Ocean.
The quake struck 500 km southwest of the city of Banda Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra island, at a depth of 33 km, the U.S. Geological survey said.

The quake was felt as far away as the Thai capital, Bangkok, and in southern India, residents said. Hundreds of office workers in Bangalore left their buildings, workers there said.
The quake was in roughly in the same area as a December 26, 2004, quake of 9.1 magnitude, which sent huge tsunami waves crashing into Sumatra, where 170,000 people were killed, and across the Indian Ocean.
In all, the 2004 tsunami killed about 230,000 people in 13 Indian Ocean countries, including Thailand, Sri Lanka and India.

The 2004 quake was at a depth of 30 km along a fault line running under the Indian Ocean, off western Indonesia and up into the Bay of Bengal.
The quake was also felt in Sri Lanka and the southern Thai holiday island of Phuket, both of which were hit hard by the 2004 tsunami.
Thai Meteorological Department deputy chief Somchai Baimoung said there was no tsunami warning yet in Thailand. Provincial officials along the Andaman Sea coast were preparing for possible evacuation if necessary.

Expert predicts Huge 35-metres tsunami might hit Japan

2012-04-04T02:12:00.001-07:00

A 35-metre (115-foot) tsunami could hit the Japanese coast in the wake of a massive earthquake, an expert panel has said after revising its worst case scenario projections following last year's disaster.
If a 9.0-magnitude quake struck in the Nankai Trough off central to western Japan huge swathes of the Pacific coastline could be inundated, with 20-metre-plus waves hitting areas from Tokyo down to the southwestern island of Kyushu.
At the town of Kuroshio in southwestern Kochi prefecture the tsunami could reach 34.4 metres -- the highest level projected under the scenario, the Cabinet Office panel said late Saturday.
And at the now offline Hamaoka nuclear plant in central Shizuoka prefecture, the tsunami could be as high as 21 metres, breaching the 18-metre breakwater that operators are currently constructing, the panel said.
In its previous projection in 2003 the panel gave a worst case scenario in which no areas would be hit by a tsunami of more than 20 metres.
But the panel has upgraded its predictions in the wake of the 9.0-magnitude earthquake on March 11 last year that sent a tsunami barrelling into the northeast, killing some 19,000 people and devastating the coastline.
Waves of more than 15 metres hit cities including Ishinomaki, Soma, and Ofunato.
The monster tsunami crippled cooling systems at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, sparking a crisis which is still ongoing.
The panel noted that the projection was for "the worst possible tsunami" and the "chance of its occurrence is extremely low".
It said it will continue studying the extent of areas that could be hit and submerged by a tsunami, while the government will examine its emergency disaster measures based on the latest estimation.

A Huge Tornado in Forney Dallas Texas

2012-04-04T01:44:00.000-07:00

Crazy tornado over city of Forney Texas. Tearing through Forney down Hwy80. Shot from Willard Heating and Air! Taken from my brother's back yard about a mile away from Forney High. Shot from his back yard in Chestnut Meadows. Scary Tornado in Forney Texas, April 3, 2012

Strong quake shakes Chile

2012-03-25T19:00:00.000-07:00

A 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck central Chile, the US Geological Survey reported, causing scenes of panic in an area devastated by a massive quake two years ago.

But there were no immediate reports of deaths or significant damage, officials in Chile said.

In its first quake damage report, the Office of National Emergencies said one person was injured in a car accident in the Bio Bio region.

"For now we do not have reports of any fatalities. There is some evidence of people injured, unfortunately from pieces of walls that fell," Interior Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter said.

The USGS said the quake struck at 2237 GMT some 32 kilometers (20 miles) northwest of Talca in Chile's Maule region, the same area ravaged by a massive 8.8 earthquake in late February 2010.

Hundreds of people ran into the streets in Talca in panic during the quake, which was felt for nearly a minute.

Chilean news media reported electrical blackouts and broken phone lines in the area around Talca, 300 kilometers (186 miles) south of the capital, Santiago.

Tall buildings shook in Santiago, and fear gripped people in shopping centers, supermarkets and the city's stadium where a football game was under way.

Some injuries were reported from falling debris in the interior of a Catholic church in Santiago.

"We were at mass when material started falling," a priest told the local medial. "The people became frightened and left."

The USGS initially reported the quake's magnitude as 7.2 but later downgraded it to 7.1.

According to the USGS, which monitors earthquakes worldwide, the epicenter of Sunday's earthquake was 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) below the ground surface.

The Maule coastal region has been periodically shaken by powerful aftershocks since the February 27, 2010 quake, which claimed more than 500 lives and billions of dollars in damage.

Most of the deaths in that quake occurred from tsunamis that slammed into coastal towns and villages.

On Sunday, Chile's Office of National Emergencies (ONEMI), which came under fierce criticism for not issuing a tsunami warning on time in 2010, issued an evacuation order for all coastal residents living along a long swath of central southern Chile.

But it later canceled the order when naval experts said there was no chance of a tsunami.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii, taking note of the earthquake in Chile, said "a destructive Pacific-wide tsunami is not expected."

Another 7.2 magnitude quake strikes central Chile

2012-03-25T18:58:00.002-07:00

A 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck central Chile Sunday, in an area hit by an 8.8 earthquake in 2010, the US Geological Survey said.

The USGS said the latest quake occurred at 2237 GMT 32 kilometers (20 miles) northwest of Talca, Chile, at a depth of 30 kilometers (18.6 miles).

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii, taking note of the earthquake in Chile, said "a destructive Pacific-wide tsunami is not expected."

The Maule coastal region in central Chile where the quake occurred has been periodically shaken by powerful aftershocks since an 8.8 magnitude quake February 27, 2010 that claimed more than 500 lives and billions of dollars in damage.

Many of the deaths in that quake occurred from local tsunamis that wiped out coastal villages.

Strong earthquake hits Japan - CNN

2012-03-14T20:01:00.001-07:00

A 6.8-magnitude earthquake shook northeastern Japan on Wednesday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The Japanese Meteorological Agency issued a brief tsunami advisory, warning of a half-meter wave. The tsunami advisory was called off a short time after the agency issued it.
The quake was centered about 270 kilometers (170 miles) off the east coast.
There were no immediate reports of damage, police said.
This temblor comes three days after the one-year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands in Japan, and triggered the world's worst nuclear crisis in a quarter century.

BIG Tsunami alert again 6.8 earthquake hits Japan

2012-03-14T04:09:00.000-07:00

A magnitude 6.8 earthquake has struck off the northeastern coast of Japan. The national meteorological agency has issued a tsunami advisory.
The quake happened at a depth of some 10 km. Kyodo news agency says the earthquake has reportedly left Japan’s nuclear facilities unscathed.
The tsunami warning is meant for the coastal Aomori and Iwate prefectures as well as central and eastern Hokkaido coast.
The estimate put the height of the tsunami at about half a meter. So far, two waves measuring 20 and 10 cm respectively reached the Japanese coast, according to NHK TV channel.
The authorities advised residents of the coastal areas to evacuate to higher ground.
Wednesday’s tremor came just days after Japan marked the anniversary of the March 11, 2011 disaster. At the time, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake, the strongest seismic event to ever hit the country, triggered a massive tsunami.
The disaster killed almost 15,900 people in Japan and badly damaged the Fukushima nuclear power plant, causing the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

source: opawtech.com

West Liberty Tornado March 2, 2012

2012-03-06T20:00:00.001-08:00

Another Big Tornado Hit West Liberty, Please please be all safe.
If you see one, just run don't take photos or a video, it won't spare your life.

This ain't another huge tornado but its an unusual series of devastating tornadoes that tore through parts of the South on March 2, 2012 and some part of Midwestern in United States late last week.

According to a report: Over 100 are said to have been reported on Friday alone. A number of residents -- as well as storm chasers -- captured images of these disasters in action.

In this video, for example, a tornado is seem forming over what's said to be West Liberty, Kentucky on Friday.

as seen in opawtech.com

Another Big Mega Earthquake this March 2012

2012-02-27T18:32:00.000-08:00

There is a clear pattern in the MegaQuake/Axis Shifts of 2010 and 2011. Every 188-9 days, we have a quake above 7.0, and every 377 days the axis of the Earth shifts. In my opinion something external is causing this, possibly our binary solar system's twin sun, or a circumbinary planet in our system, that is getting closer.

Philippines issues local tsunami alert after quake hits between islands

2012-02-05T23:46:00.001-08:00

A 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck Monday off the third-largest island in the Philippines, prompting the country to issue a tsunami alert for the coastlines near the epicenter.
The quake struck about 11:49 a.m. (10:49 p.m. Sunday ET) about 70 kilometers (44 miles) from the coastal city of Dumaguete on the Philippine island of Negros, the USGS said.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology issued a level 2 tsunami alert for areas along the Tanon Strait between Negros and the neighboring island of Cebu.

That's a notch below the highest tsunami alert of level 3, which requires evacuation of the affected areas, a spokeswoman for the institute said.

She said the institute was advising people to watch out for unusual waves and to stay away from the shoreline.
No tsunami warning was issued for the wider Pacific region and there was no tsunami threat to Hawaii, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.

The earthquake occurred in the ocean at a depth of 46.6 kilometers (29 miles), according to the USGS.
At the Circle Inn Hotel in the city of Bacolod, which is on Negros but not on the coast nearest the quake's epicenter, a receptionist said the quake lasted between three and five minutes.
"We felt the shaking," the receptionist said. "The guests all exited the building. But all the people here are okay."
There was no damage to the hotel, the receptionist said.

February 6, 2012 Earthquake around the world

2012-02-05T23:40:00.000-08:00

Cebu had 3 earthquakes today:
Negros-Cebu Region, Philippines 5.6 Negros-Cebu Region, Philippines 4.8 Negros-Cebu Region, Philippines 6.7 And the earthquake didn't just happened in Negros-Cebu Region.

It happened to the rest of the world as well TODAY.

1.Northern Alaska 3.1
2.Halmahera, Indonesia 4.4
3.Fiji Region 5.1
4.East Coast of Honshu, Japan 4.7
5.Southern Peru 4.7
6.Michoacan, Mexico 4.8
7.Mindanao, Philippines 5.2 8.Offshore CHiapas, Mexico 4.3
9.Vanuatu 6.0
10.Taiwan Region 4.5
11.Java, Indonesia 4.4
12.Southwest of Sumatra, Indonesia 4.8
13.Dominican Republic Region 3.0
14.Kepulauan Talaud, Indonesia 4.7
15.Offshore El Salvasor 4.8
16. East Coast of Honshu, Japan 4.6
17.Offshore Chiapas, Mexico 4.8
18.Marianas Islands Region 4.7
19.Fiji Region 4.6
20.Kyrgyzstan 5.2
21.Southern Iran 5.0
22.Off the West Coasr of Northern Sumatra 4.5

6.8 Magnitude Earthquake rocks Cebu Negros Visayas Region

2012-02-05T21:07:00.000-08:00

A 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck Cebu and Negros islands late Monday morning, killing a child and triggering a local tsunami alert.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology issued the tsunami alert for the central Philippines, saying the quake could trigger a 3-foot (1-meter) wave. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not issue a warning.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was centered 44 miles (72 kilometers) north of Dumaguete city on Negros Island in the central Philippines. It hit at a depth of 29 miles (46 kilometers).

People rushed out of schools, malls and offices during the quake. Officials in some areas suspended work.

A child died when a concrete fence of a house collapsed in Taysan town in Negros Oriental province, said Benito Ramos, who heads the Office of Civil Defense.
A mall in San Carlos city in neighboring Negros Occidental province, also on Negros Island, was damaged when its windows were shattered by the shaking, he said.
The quake was also felt in central Cebu city, the country's second largest, where it lasted about 30 seconds.

Biggest solar storm since 2005 pummels Earth

2012-01-24T17:56:00.000-08:00

A potent solar flare has unleashed the biggest radiation storm since 2005 and could disrupt some satellite communications in the polar regions, US space weather monitors said Monday.
The event started late Sunday with a moderate-sized solar flare that erupted right near the center of the Sun, said Doug Biesecker, a physicist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Space Weather Prediction Center.

"The flare itself was nothing spectacular, but it sent off a very fast coronal mass ejection traveling four million miles per hour (6.4 million kilometers per hour)," he told AFP.
A rush of radiation in the form of solar protons already has begun bombarding the Earth and is likely to continue through Wednesday.

The radiation storm is the largest of its kind since 2005 but still ranks only a three on the scale of one to five, enough to be considered "strong" but not "severe," he added.
NOAA said its website the S3 ranking means "it could, e.g., cause isolated reboots of computers onboard Earth-orbiting satellites and interfere with polar radio communications."
Biesecker said that when it comes to radiation storms, the polar regions are affected most.
For instance, the storm could spell disruptions to airline flights, oil operations, Arctic exploration and space satellites.

Night-sky viewers in Asia and Europe may be able to witness the aurora, or Northern Lights, late Tuesday as a result of the storm.

"We don't expect major impacts from an event like this," Biesecker said.
"It's the people who need GPS (global positioning system) accuracy of centimeters who have to worry, not people who want to know if you're going to turn the car 30 meters (100 feet) ahead."

Massive solar flare in the years 2012/2013 could throw us back 100 years

2012-01-12T02:25:00.000-08:00

Even in Fox TV they believe. Massive solar flare in the years 2012/2013 could throw us back 100 years.

Do You Believe in the End of the World?

2012-01-08T18:50:00.001-08:00

Signs in the sun, moon, and stars, wars and rumours of wars, earthquakes in various places,floods, pestilence, famines, tsunamis. Freak tornadoes decending upon places never seen before. Distress of nations, civil unrest, uprising spreading to a global scale, sudden acceleration in record breaking natural disasters, worldwide mass animal die offs, pole-shift, earth knocked of axis, days shortened. cosmic disturbence, etc. Events leaving scientists clueless. These are some of the events described in the books of Matthew, and Luke as The beginning of Sorrows, which progress into what is called THE GREAT TRIBULATION period spoken of in the book of Daniel and REVELATIONS, and we are on the very footstep of that time period. Things are going to get worse beyond comprehension. Whether you believe or not, very peculiar and uncertain times lay ahead.

How will our Earth Ends

2011-12-28T00:43:00.000-08:00

With a year packed full of strong solar flares affecting communications, future volcanic predictions and giant asteroids passing dangerously close to Earth, what kind of cataclysmic events are most likely to push humans to the brink of extinction? We look at some of the most popular doomsday theories and examine whether these five natural phenomena could end the world as we know it – or whether they are just pure science fiction.

Meteorites and asteroids

Giant pieces of rock falling from space made exciting plots for ‘90s sci-fi movies like ‘Armageddon’ and ‘Deep Impact’. Meteorite impact or The ‘Alvarez’ hypothesis met criticism when the theory was first raised in 1980, but it has since been widely accepted that a meteorite strike could have actually wiped out the whole dinosaur population over 65 million years ago.

The last known meteorite to hit Earth, causing significant damage, was in 1908 when a meteorite the size of a ten-storey building exploded over Siberia, flattening 80 million trees over 2,000 square kilometres near the Tunguska River. Luckily, the region was so remote that the strike didn’t harm anyone. Programme scientist for Near Earth Objects at NASA told Yahoo! News: “Such an event releases energies on the order of a few megatons of TNT, because of the velocity at which they impact – many kilometres per second. The Hiroshima atomic bomb released the equivalent of about 15 kilotons of TNT. So even relatively small asteroids could cause the damage equivalent to a very large nuclear weapon if they were to strike the Earth.”

Latest Science news

Russian scientists have issued some more apocalyptic predictions. An asteroid dubbed ‘Apophis’, estimated to be the size of two football fields, could collide with Earth as early as 16 April 2036 if a change in gravity causes it to fall out of its orbit. While they admit it is theoretically possible for the asteroid to hit Earth, they note that the chances are remote; in fact, they put the odds at one in 233,000. Sergei Smirnov, a spokesman at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Observatory, said: “How much of a threat this asteroid actually presents will be impossible to assess until 2028, when it approaches our planet. If it does strike, our planet will face a continental disaster and major climate change. And if the asteroid falls into an ocean, the disaster could assume global proportions.”

Solar storms

Powerful solar storms exactly like the ones the world witnessed at the beginning of 2011 occur once every eleven years as the sun’s magnetic field flips over. ‘Solar Cycle 24’ has been building gradually with the number of sunspots and solar storms set to reach a ‘solar maximum’ by 2013. Super solar flares send great geysers of hot gas and huge quantities of charged particles erupting from the surface into space. These flares of charged particles, called ‘coronal mass ejections’, slam into the Earth's magnetic shield impairing electrical devices in their path.

In 1859, the ‘Carrington Event’, a solar flare which lasted eight days, wreaked havoc on all of the world’s telegraphs and set buildings on fire. The National Academy of Sciences says that in modern times the solar flares could knock out 300 important transformers within 90 seconds and cut power for 130 million people. They also estimated that during the first year after a solar storm, damage could be as high as £1.2 trillion with a recovery time of four to ten years. A spokeswoman from the Heliophysics division at NASA told Yahoo! News: “Saying solar flares would end the world is a little drastic. But in terms of affecting us as humans, it is very damaging to our lifestyles; it can destroy communications that we are very dependent on, like power lines and GPS satellites.”

As the sun is said to become more turbulent as it approaches the peak in its activity cycle around 2013, the UK government’s chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir John Beddington, warned: “We've had a relatively quiet period of space weather. We can't expect that quiet period to continue. At the same time over that period the potential vulnerability of our systems has increased dramatically, whether it is the smart grid in our electricity systems or the ubiquitous use of GPS in just about everything we use these days. The situation has changed. We need to be thinking about the ability both to categorise and explain and give early warning when particular types of space weather are likely to occur.”

Pole shift

According to some modern astronomers and an ancient Mayan prophecy, on the winter solstice of 21 December 2012, Earth will be in exact alignment with the sun and the centre of the Milky Way galaxy - an extraordinary event which happens once every 25,800 years. No one knows exactly what effect this alignment will have on Earth, but the Mayans believed that the consequences of the inter-galactic occurrence would be catastrophic, prompting the world’s end. It is imagined that a magnetic field effect reversal will take place, where the entire mantle of the earth would shift in a matter of days, changing the position of the North and the South Pole. Such a rapid change in the Earth’s dynamics would result in earthquakes, tsunamis, global climatic change and eventually the ultimate planetary disaster, similar to the one depicted in the disaster movie ‘2012’.

Despite their beliefs, polar shift has been backed by some scientists, albeit not at the rapidity the Mayans believed. Renowned scientist Albert Einstein is known to have been an advocator of the theory and according to a 2006 study by Princeton University, geologist, Adam Maloof said that the Earth’s poles have shifted before. The study found that the North Pole could have rested in the middle of the Pacific Ocean 800 million years ago, placing the state of Alaska as far south as the equator.

However, NASA disagrees, predicting that the polar shift event will not mean that Earth meets it fate. Experts debunked the theory, saying: “Nothing bad will happen to Earth in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than four billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012. There are no planetary alignments in the next few decades, Earth will not cross the galactic plane in 2012, and even if these alignments were to occur, their effects on the Earth would be negligible.”

Super volcano eruptions

2010’s eruption of Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland brought air travel across Northern Europe to a virtual standstill, but if one of the largest known super volcanoes was to blow, it could cause a global disaster of biblical proportions. According to volcanologists, the last super volcano to erupt was Mount Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia, 75,000 years ago. Thousands of cubic kilometres of ash and sulphur dioxide were thrown into the atmosphere - so much that it blocked out light from the sun all over the world, resulting in global temperatures plummeting by 21°c. It is imagined that black acidic rain would have fallen due to gas poisoning. Such an event supposedly eradicated mankind, cutting the population to just a couple of thousand people, and three quarters of all living plants in the northern hemisphere are thought to have been killed.

Now international scientists speak about the possibility of a future eruption of one of the largest known prehistoric volcanoes - the Yellowstone caldera in Wyoming, which sits above a large magma chamber and is showing more signs of activity. Observers say that an eruption would result in a mega disaster coating half the US in a layer of ash up to one metre deep, killing livestock and putting thousands of human lives at risk. Scientists say that it typically erupts every 600,000 years, but the last eruption occurred 640,000 years ago, meaning the next one is long overdue.

Global warming

Should the Earth’s average temperature continue to rise at the rate it has done over the last 50 years, the face of the Earth as we know it will change, say climatologists. The reasons for this type of man-made climate change have been well-documented and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says it’s not too late to save our planet as leading figures try to stop the ill-effects that the Earth’s population and living species will experience from the so-called ‘greenhouse effect’ before the world becomes unbearable for man to live in.

The IPCC has drafted the worst-case scenario. According to an assessment of how global warming could progress beyond 2100 - the normal time frame of model predictions - if temperatures rise by even 6°C rainforests will be wiped out, fertility of many soils will be destroyed and the Arctic will be left ice-free even in midwinter. London will be as hot as Cairo with air quality so poor it would endanger human respiratory systems. The world’s most populous low-lying cities like Tokyo, New York, Mumbai, Shanghai and Dhaka will be engulfed by floods after an eleven-metre rise in sea levels. Extreme weather events, like hurricanes and droughts will become more common, with climate change spreading more infectious diseases.

Doctors warn that global warming will also create more heat-related deaths from cardiovascular problems and strokes. Young children and the elderly will be especially vulnerable to higher temperatures. Scientists claim that humanity will be reduced to a few last survivors living near the poles with it eventually going extinct over the next couple of centuries if we don’t stop emissions.

from yahoo

Rare near-Earth asteroid fly-by set for Tuesday

2011-11-07T18:37:00.000-08:00

A massive asteroid will make a rare fly-by Tuesday, and although it poses no danger of crashing to Earth, US scientists said this week they are looking forward to getting a closer look.

"This is not a potentially hazardous asteroid, just a good opportunity to study one," said National Science Foundation astronomer Thomas Statler.

The circular asteroid, named 2005 YU55, is about 1,300 feet (400 meters) wide and will come closer than the Moon, zipping by at a distance of 202,000 miles (325,000 kilometers), the US space agency said.

The time of the nearest flyby is expected to be at 2328 GMT (6:28 Eastern time in the US).

The encounter will be the closest by an asteroid of that size in more than 30 years, and a similar event will not happen again until 2028.

Astronomers who have studied the object, part of the C-class of asteroids, say it is very dark, like the color of carbon, and quite porous.

It was first discovered in 2005 by Robert McMillan of the Spacewatch Project, a solar-system-scanning group of scientists near Tucson, Arizona.

While 2005 YU55 will stay a safe distance away, it is part of a crew of 1,262 big asteroids circling the Sun and measuring more than 500 feet (150 meters) across that NASA classifies as "potentially hazardous."

"We want to study these asteroids so if one does look like it may hit us someday, we'll know what to do about it," Statler said.

The asteroid's closest pass is set to take place in 2094, at a distance of 167,000 miles (269,000 kilometers), according to forecasts.

"The observations will give us a piece of the puzzle, one we don't get many chances to see," said Don Yeomans of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

"At one time, we thought these were the asteroids that delivered carbon and other elements to the early Earth, so they are pretty important."

NASA said the last time a space rock this big approached Earth was in 1976, "although astronomers did not know about the flyby at the time."

NASA 'solves' 2,000-year supernova mystery

2011-10-25T19:37:00.003-07:00

New infrared observations from NASA telescopes have revealed how the first supernova ever recorded occurred and how its shattered remains ultimately spread out to great distances.
The US space agency said Monday its Spitzer Space Telescope and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) had solved a mystery dating from 2,000 years ago when Chinese astronomers witnessed what turned out to be an exploding star.
The findings show that the stellar explosion took place in a hollowed-out cavity, allowing material expelled by the star to travel much faster and farther than it would have otherwise.
"This supernova remnant got really big, really fast," said Brian Williams, an astronomer at North Carolina State University and lead author of a new study detailing the telescope's findings online in the Astrophysical Journal.
"It's two to three times bigger than we would expect for a supernova that was witnessed exploding nearly 2,000 years ago. Now, we've been able to finally pinpoint the cause," he added.
In 185 A.D., Chinese astronomers noted a "guest star" that mysteriously appeared in the sky and stayed for about eight months. By the 1960s, scientists had determined that the mysterious object was the first documented supernova.
Later, they pinpointed the object, known as RCW 86, as a supernova remnant located about 8,000 light-years away but remained puzzled at how the star's spherical remains were larger than expected.
"With multiple observatories extending our senses in space, we can fully appreciate the remarkable physics behind this star's death throes, yet still be as in awe of the cosmos as the ancient astronomers," said Bill Danchi, Spitzer and WISE program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

5.2 quake hits Japan's Fukushima prefecture

2011-10-25T19:37:00.001-07:00

A moderate earthquake has shaken the northeastern Japanese prefecture where the much more massive earthquake and tsunami touched off the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl earlier this year.
The 5.2-magnitude quake struck Fukushima Prefecture overnight just after 2 a.m. local time Wednesday (1700 GMT Tuesday). Its epicenter was on the coast near the town of Iwaki, 115 miles (186 km) north of Tokyo.
Fukushima was severely hit by the quake and tsunami in March that left more than 21,000 people dead or missing.
The Wednesday quake was about 70 miles (120 km south) of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facility.
Another 5.3 quake later Wednesday hit 262 miles (423 kilometers) southwest of Tokyo, off the Japan coast.

Strong quake hits west Indonesia; at least 1 dead

2011-09-06T19:44:00.001-07:00

A powerful earthquake jolted the western Indonesian island of Sumatra early Tuesday, killing a 12-year-old boy and sending people streaming from houses, hotels and at least one hospital in panic.
The magnitude-6.6 quake was centered 60 miles (100 kilometers) southwest of the city of Medan and 62 miles (110 kilometers) beneath the earth's crust, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
It was too far inland to generate a tsunami.
The quake hit at about 1 a.m. (1800 GMT Monday), rattling people from their sleep in towns and villages across the island's northern tip.
Maura Sakti, a mayor in Subulussalam, told local station TVOne a 12-year-old boy had been killed. At least one other person was injured.
Hundreds of people were evacuated to temporary shelters as authorities surveyed the extent of the damage, said Lt. Col. Helmy Kesuma, police chief in the hard-hit town of Singkil.
Some electricity poles were knocked down there, crashing into homes and causing blackouts.
"My wife was screaming, my children crying," said Burhan Mardiansyah, 37, a Singkil resident. "We saw our walls start to crack and everything inside the house was falling. Thank God we're all safe."
The panic extended all the way to Medan, the sprawling provincial capital of North Sumatra, where hundreds of patients from at least one hospital had to be evacuated, some in wheelchairs or with infusion drips still attached to their arms.
Hotels emptied out and residents ran into the streets or the balconies of their rented homes, clutching babies to their chests.
Fearing aftershocks, many refused to go back inside for hours.
Indonesia straddles a series of fault lines that makes the vast island nation prone to volcanic and seismic activity.
A giant quake off the country on Dec. 26, 2004, triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed 230,000 people, half of them in Indonesia's westernmost province of Aceh.