Fear as Earth almost destroyed completely by massive solar flare

Texas, USA: The blast would have been so powerful it would have knocked out everything 'that plugs into a wall socket'.

The earth was almost plunged into a global catastrophe which would have knocked us back to the Dark Ages ... and no-one told us about it.

Just two years ago - on July 23, 2012 - the planet was involved in a near miss after the most powerful solar storm on the sun in over 150 years.

A solar flare, what scientists call a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), was sent flying into space and if it had launched itself just days earlier it would have headed directly at us.

“If it had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces,” says Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado.

“If the eruption had occurred only one week earlier, Earth would have been in the line of fire.

"We managed to just avoid the event through lucky timing as the sun’s aim narrowly turned away from Earth.

"Had it occurred a week earlier when it WAS pointing at us the result could have been frighteningly different.

“I have come away from our recent studies more convinced than ever that Earth and its inhabitants were incredibly fortunate that the 2012 eruption happened when it did."

So what would have happened if we had not been so lucky?

Scientists believe a direct CME hit would have the potential to wipe out communication networks, GPS, and electrical grids which would have caused a widespread blackout.

The 'hit', according to Baker, would disable “everything that plugs into a wall socket." Most people wouldn’t even be able to flush their toilet either because urban water supplies largely rely on electric pumps.

And the chaos could have continued for years because that is how long it would have taken to repair multi-ton transformers wiped out in the hit.

According to a study by the National Academy of Sciences, the total economic impact could exceed $2 trillion or 20 times greater than the costs of a Hurricane Katrina.

So you can breath a sigh of relief ... or can you?

Amazingly the chances of similar event happening again are quite high.

Physicist Pete Riley, who published a paper entitled “On the probability of occurrence of extreme space weather events”, has calculated the odds of a solar storm strong enough to disrupt our lives in the next ten years is 12 per cent.

“Initially, I was quite surprised that the odds were so high, but the statistics appear to be correct,” says Riley.

“It is a sobering figure.”