Although the last Doomsday prediction that the world would end on Dec 21, 2012 was an epic failure, red-faced Mayans would not prevent other apocalyptic forecasters from prophesying end times.

To bolster that idea of another forthcoming Armageddon are recent Earth and cosmic developments that took place days after 12-21-12. The so-called signs of the times are classic portents ranging from volcanic eruptions to solar showers and planetary alignments.

Volcanic Eruptions

Two volcanoes in the Americas had several small eruptions the past few days which could lead to massive ones. On Tuesday, the San Cristobal Volcano registered several small eruptions but residents refused to leave the area.

Authorities have ordered residents of Grecia 4 and Bethlehem who live on the slopes of the volcano to evacuate but about 1,500 farmers did not heed the command even as San Cristobal spewed gas, sand and ash.

The Nicaraguan government issued a yellow alert on Wednesday covering a 1.8-mile radius and deployed 140 civil defense troops to convince the farmers to temporarily leave the danger zone surrounding San Cristobal, which is Nicaragua's tallest of seven active volcanoes. Its first eruption was in 1685 and the last in September 2012 which killed some farm animals.

Rosario Murillo, the federal government spokeswoman and the country's first lady, said 15 eruptions were recorded on Thursday northeast of Managua, the country's capital.

On Sunday, Dec 23, Chile issued a red alert for the areas near Copahue Volcano which lies on the country's Andean border with Argentina. However, the National Emergency Office did not yet order evacuations since there are no towns in the current risk area.

Experts said that the 2,965-metre volcano straddles the two nations, but most of the activity under way is leaning toward the Argentina side.

"The intensity of seismic signals suggest the eruption in progress is on the smaller side (but) we are not ruling out the possibility that the activity could turn into a larger-scale eruption," Chile's Geology and Mining Service said in a statement.

The service warned of potentially dangerous mudslides within a 15-kilometre radius of the crater.

Only about 400 people live in Copahue, a tourist town known for its spa water, some 900 in Caviahue and 800 more in local indigenous Mapuche communities.

Powerful volcanic eruptions such as that of Vesuvius were thought by residents to be portents of a doomsday or it could have a major impact on climate change such as the Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines on June 1991.

Solar Showers

In an article on ZDNet, Oliver Marks pointed out that the Solar and Heliosphere Observatory spacecraft is orbiting between the Earth and the Sun while the joint European Space Agency and U.S. NASA effort has been in orbit since 1995, which would serve as the Earth's early warning system of a solar flare.

Mr Marks wrote that if the sun would throw off coronal mass ejections (CME), it would carry billions of tonnes of charged particularly into space and if these mammoth clouds are in the direction of Earth's upper atmosphere, it would result in spectacular auroras.

People who lived in 1859 witnessed multicoloured Aurorae at different points around the world, but those in the northeastern U.S. could read by its light.

He said that in the event of another CME, the Earth's core infrastructure are protected from such solar events because advanced warnings of massive solar activities would enable the Earth's electronic systems to be shut down and disconnect to protect people from the solar storm hits.

In the 1859 event, the largest solar flare event on record, telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed and some telegraph operators were electrocuted and burnt by their Morse keys when the solar storm hit Earth. Pylons also threw sparks and telegraph paper spontaneously caught fire.

The event was part of Solar Cycle 10, and we are now in Solar Cycle 24, which will peak in 2013. Mr Marks cited predictions that the current 11-year cycle will be the least active cycle in the past 100 years.

Planetary Alignment

Space.com reported that on the night of Dec 25, the moon and planet Jupiter appeared closest together as viewed from the eastern and central United States. Jupiter was seen as a silvery star with a steady glow to the upper left of the bright, nearly full moon.

These astronomical displays are normally not seen due to light pollutions but even city dwellers were able to view the bright pair of celestial bodies on Christmas night. Due to their separation by only 2 degrees, the Christmas conjunction created a beautiful apparition.

Besides their alignment, people who used powerful telescopes that day saw Jupiter's storms and cloud belts and the Moon's mountains and impact craters.

While these earthly and cosmic events are definitely no indicators of another doomsday, another nutty Armageddon prophet will likely attempt to sow fear in a jaded world of another end-of-the-world scenario despite the epic failures of previous predictions.

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