How bad will the solar storms of 2008 be?
368249
this is an 11 year cycle of our sun. it will start revving up around 2008 and should peak around 2012.  we have had them in the past say about 22 years ago. If it dose happen the thing we need IS solar panels.  because the transformers on the planet will be taken out by power surges of the sun and we will be without power for as much as 10 years while they rebuild them. (we really need alternative energy then) but i really don't think it is something we really need to worry about.
815466
u can visit www.solarsystem.nasa.gov
250469
i agree debris would be the larger problem in the near future.\nIts all about time scale and which two planets, it might not affect our lifetime. On the other hand our neighborhood as become pretty calm and not so much traffic as when the planets were forming, I suspect it will only get calmer and more boring unless the sun does some crazy stuff.
487630
ok there are solar flares that reach us but earth's magnetic field sort of protects us.\nso what we need is a combo of some sort\nso how about we go for\nEarth's magnetic pole flipping\nSolar flare(big) or solar increase\nMeteor\nComet\nput them all in the blender and mix\n\nso at the same time the magnetic pole flips\nthe field will drop to zero(not sure on how long)\nat this time a solar flare hits us making the entire sky look like the northern lights(very beautiful at sun set)\nbecause the atmosphere starts to ionize.\nand on the night side a comet heading straight for earth\nbut the comet is over taken by a large meteor that smashes the comet creating a lot of small comets of ice and rock and one mostly untouched meteor about 150-200km or larger in diameter. the meteor can crash in the middle of the pacific right on top of hawaii taking it out and creating a large tsunami that kills most of the people in the costal areas. then the ice covered meteors from the comet will at some time over the next 48 hours end up taking out most of the major urban centers of the world and the farms as well.\nalso the ensuing earthquakes can completely teraform the landscape in to a more mountainous terrain.\nand the electro magnetic serge caused by the solar flare launches all of the armaments across the globe at random GPS co-ordinates.(nuklear, chemical, biological, ETC...)\n\nhows that for a disaster waiting to happen.
30541
Mass solar ejections. Sun storms basically.
712157
It will happen, but exactly when isn't known. Take a look at this website for current risks for those objects that do come relatively close to Earth ==>http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/
797411
It ends up... flying out into space.  We call this stuff solar wind.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_wind\n\nIntrestingly enough when a solar flare happens and is directed towards earth, we can get all sorts of wonderful charged particals blow at us that can knock out electrical grids, screw up satalites, and the like.
459341
http://moskaluk.com/Mesh/solar_7.jpg\nMIKE
215465
No but it's a worry given the quality of world leadership we are enduring! You should ask Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (for those that don't know he's Supreme Leader of Iran which is both religious leader and military commander in chief - a dangerous combination!) and Hú Jǐntāo (President of the People's Republic of China who threatened Mr. Bush with nuclear war if Bush tried to stop China's progress towards annexing Taiwan, or attacked North Korea). As an Economics grad I know if none of these characters spark a nuclear confrontation we should survive the next 10 years. \n\nYou are also right to say that every beginning has an end. As a science grad I believe that the world will end eventually but not in our life time as our Sun, source of most life processes will die. In 4–5 billion years, it will enter a red giant phase, its outer layers expanding as the hydrogen fuel in the core is consumed and the core contracts and heats up. Helium fusion will begin when the core temperature reaches about 3×108 K. While it is likely that the expansion of the outer layers of the Sun will reach the current position of Earth's orbit. Recent research suggests that mass lost from the Sun earlier in its red giant phase will cause the Earth's orbit to move further out, preventing it from being engulfed. Following the red giant phase, intense thermal pulsations will cause the Sun to throw off its outer layers, forming a planetary nebula. The Sun will then evolve into a white dwarf, slowly cooling over eons. At this stage the solar luminosity will be insufficient to support life on Earth.
580787
It really depends of what you mean to be bad. If you're talking like huge coastal flooding and climate that is not suitable for living, I suppose that will be 50 to 70 years away, if the current pattern keeps going on.\n\nAnother less eye catching, yet really compelling item that can destroy the world is the spread of disease. Bird flu is definitely emerging and the other unknown disease are also huge threats to the world. With all the international travel, half the earth's population may die in a year in case of an out break of those deadly diseases. That's should be what we fear more about at the moment.
1033355
Yes but it will be a long time away. In 6 to 7 billion years, stellar evolution theory predicts our sun will evolve into a red giant  and will probably completely surround the Earth. I don't think I will be around then.
881026
Actually, global warming would lead to stronger storms which make larger hail. I think this idea you have said about hail decreasing in size over time is wrong because it doesn't make much sense.
1166435
Yes.  The sun will blow up in about 4.5 billion years, taking the earth with it.  Odds are humans will have been gone long before that though.
890895
depends on charge density, configuration of layers, solar activity, magnetic field, etc\nf_{critical} = 9 x10^-3 /sqrt{N}, where N is electron density per cm^3\n\nIt's around 1-4MHz
868776
We'll be watching at my school if it's not cloudy (the weather doesn't look good for the northeast US).  We don't have anything fancy, just an 8" Schmidt-Cass with a solar filter.  If we do get clouded/rained out, then we'll be watching a webcast, projected on the planetarium dome.
480364
Yup. The latest will be 5 billion years from now, give or take a few hundred thousand. By then the sun will either:\n\n1) engulf our planet (very unlikely, but will come close enough to vaporize our planet)\n2) Die and not engulf or vaporize our planet and within days our atmosphere will freeze and fall to the earth in the form of ice.
75347
This question can't be adaquately addressed in this forum.  There are a couple websites you can refer to for these answers.\n\nhttp://solarsystem.nasa.gov\nhttp://www.nineplanets.org