Our sun is more than a nuclear fusion factory and the source of energy for all life on Earth.
It's also a really big magnet.
In the sun's super-hot center, atoms are stripped of their electrons and boil to the surface along charged convection currents as wide as Texas.
Moving charged particles, whether they're through a wire, or along solar plasma highways, create magnetic fields.
As the sun rotates, these magnetic fields are tangled into knots that eventually pierce the surface of the sun . . . now the real show begins.
Massive loops connect this mishmash of magnetic eddys, acting as conduits for million-degree currents of plasma, glowing in ultraviolet, and only visible to special satellites.
The material flowing through a coronal loop carries enough energy to power Earth for thousands of years, and when those loops break, they can whip billions of tons of charged particles out into space.
If that ejection happens to be facing towards a particular tiny blue planet, that solar sneeze can knock out power grids and mobile phones.
The sun can be a cruel mistress . . . giver of life, taker away of mobile phone service.
Of course, we're not totally unlucky when the sun blasts us with magnetic dragon fire . . . because we get these.
