One week from catastrophe: Hugely destructive solar flare narrowly missed earth

Earth missed a potentially catastrophic encounter with a solar storm by one week in 2012, physicists report.

"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," physicist Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado said in a Nasa Science online release.

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

On July 23, 2012, the sun unleashed two massive clouds of plasma that barely missed a catastrophic encounter with the earth's atmosphere.

These plasma clouds, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), comprised a solar storm thought to be the most powerful in at least 150 years.

"If it had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces," Baker said. Had the event occurred a week earlier when the point of eruption was earth-facing, the outcome could have been disastrous.