I thought I'd share a rather impressive event, seeing we are approaching the Solar Maximum in 2012 and seeing that is what OP and the movie "Knowing" seems to be suggesting.

Watch Mercury get hit by a Coronial Mass Ejection from the sun.

Go to SOHO Movie Theatre [link to sohodata.nascom.nasa.gov]

Select Lasco C2

Resolution 512 or 1024 (1024 makes it bigger and slower)

Start Date 2011-04-07

End Date 2011-04-07

Then click Search

And was this the result?

[link to news.discovery.com]

Now of course the Earth is a loy further from the Sun than poor old Mercury.

Mercury 36 million miles (57.9 million km) from Sun

Earth 93 million miles (149.6 million km) from Sun

So it would have to be a collosal CME to hit us like the one above.

I hope the Mercurians were wearing sunscreen that day.