A smiling sun may look cute to some, but the sad truth is that a smiling sun means a solar storm is coming that could pack a punch strong enough to knock out the satellites us humans need for all of our communications.

No internet! No cellphone! No TV! All we human beings will have to entertain ourselves is each other! At this moment, there are many of you wondering, “How can we stop the sun from bringing such dark days upon us?!” Welp, we can’t.

The sun is a superior form of matter. And we humans have yet to develop the intellectual capabilities that will give us the power to control that which is superior to us. Plus, there is no chance that the Greek Sun God Apollo or the Egyptian Sun God Aten will help us with our lil’ sun problem. Therefore, we have to do what we always do which is to continue learning about that which is greater than us so that we may be better position to defend ourselves against that which is greater.

The good news is that we have learn some things about the sun. The some things that we have learn about the sun are how the sun spots, magnetic fields, and the coronal holes work.

Think of the sunspots as poles and the magnetic fields as ropes attached to the poles. The ropes loop around, forming a fence that keeps the sun’s gases from getting out.

Whenever there is a break in the loop of the magnetic field, a hole is created. And the hole that is created is the coronal hole. The coronal hole behaves like all holes do. It allows things to escape. And the sun’s gases are the things that the coronal hole allows to escape. In other words, the sun passes gas out of its coronal hole onto our planet.

The gas that the sun passes out of its coronal hole onto our planet creates geomagnetic storms that cause the internet to go down and those beautiful aurora lights, which y’all see on Polar Express, to appear.



Depending upon the intensity of the gas that the sun passes out of its coronal hole onto our planet, the effects can range from



to

.

Fortunately for us, we’re at the



level. The science folks call that level G1. The G stands for geomagnetic storms. The highest level is



, G5, which is when blackouts, problems with your car’s navigation system, and problems with your security system occur.

Now, all of the gas passing out of the coronal hole happens over an 11-year time period. The 11-year time period is call a solar cycle. The solar cycle is the number of sunspots. Few sun spots equal a low solar cycle. A low solar cycle means the coronal holes will be pushed out to the sun’s north and south poles. Many sun spots equal a high solar cycle. A high solar cycle means coronal holes are going to be all over the place.

As of now, we are at the 25th solar cycle; which is known as solar cycle 25. The NASA folks said that come July 2025, the solar cycle will be at his highest point. During its highest point, there will be approximately 115.3 sunspots.

Those will be a lot of sun spots surrounded by a lot of coronal holes letting out a lot of gas our way.