For all of the end times prognostication that occurred in 2012, it turns out that modern life actually was almost completely destroyed that year, thanks to an "extreme solar storm" that sent plasma clouds hurtling from the sun at a rate of 3,000 km/s. Described as a "Carrington event", named after English astronomer Richard Carrington who observed a similar storm in 1859, the storm would have hit Earth had it happened only a week sooner, frying all electronics across the globe and leaving an impact that we would still be feeling today. NASA estimates the destruction would have cost $2 trillion.
The soothsayers and doom prophets would have been utterly insufferable.
You can watch a NASA report on the storm that almost resulted in an R.E.M. song
AFTER THE JUMP…
