Solar maximum could hit us harder and sooner than we thought. How dangerous will the sun's chaotic peak be?

This image shows how the sun's appearance changes between solar maximum (on the left) and solar minimum (on the right). (Image credit: NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory)

From a distance, the sun may seem calm and steady. But zoom in, and our home star is actually in a perpetual state of flux, transforming over time from a uniform sea of fire to a chaotic jumble of warped plasma and back again in a recurring cycle. 

Every 11 years or so, the sun's magnetic field gets tangled up like a ball of tightly wound rubber bands until it eventually snaps and completely flips — turning the north pole into the south pole and vice versa. In the lead-up to this gargantuan reversal, the sun amps up its activity: belching out fiery blobs of plasma, growing dark planet-size spots and emitting streams of powerful radiation.