End of the world in 2012?

Revelation 2: “Solar Flare”

The Mayans predicted that on December 21, 2012 Sun will receive a strong synchronizing beam from the center of the galaxy, which will change its polarization and will produce a gigantic radiant flare»
* extracted from the supposed 7 Mayan prophecies.

Based on this prediction, it is speculated that an anomaly in our star will cause it to expel a giant flare towards Earth, so powerful as to incinerate us and/or cause disastrous climatic effects that threaten life on Earth, a hypothesis that has been fueled by chance solar cycle delay 24. A couple of things need to be clarified: First, talking about a "anomaly" either "disease» on the Sun implies that this is a star that is totally synchronized and immutable in time, and this is not the case. The Sun has sunspot cycles that on average last 11 years (Schwabe cycle), but occasionally they were as short as 9 or as long as 13.6 (there are also other cycles such as Gleissberg [~88 years] or the Hallstatt [~2,300 years]). Predicting a next solar cycle is complex and cannot be taken as an exact estimate. In fact, although a few months ago the maximum of cycle 24 was estimated for the year 2012, the current low activity has made delay it to May 2013.

Cycles Solar eclipses have suffered significant irregularities since they began to be measured, so the delay of cycle 24 (for example) is not a justification for maintaining that the Sun has an "illness" or is subject to an anomaly that causes it to erupt a monstrous flare. There have been very long periods of minimal activity on the Sun, such as the Maunder minimum (1645-1715), the Sporer Minimum (1420-1570) or the Dalton Minimum (1790-1830), which actually coincided with periods of low temperatures on Earth (such as the "Little Ice Age» during Maunder), although the relationship between solar cycles and terrestrial temperatures is not entirely clear; on the other hand, during peaks of solar activity there is always the possibility of collateral effects on Earth, as occurred during the maximums of 1989 and 2001, when some communications satellites failed and there were blackouts due to electrical overloads. 

However, all this does not ensure that there will be a new Ice Age, or failures in satellites (or something worse) due to intense solar activity in cycle 24. And even if this occurs, we are still faced with a natural phenomenon based scientific, and not an exceptional case based on a Mayan prophecy (suffice it to say that during the Maunder and the peaks of activity of 1989/2001 the world did not end!).