A Canadian College Student Who Has Taken an Astronomy Class

A Canadian college student who has taken an astronomy class goes home for the holidays and persuades his parents to let him borrow the family car. When he returns, he finds that his parents are very angry with him, claiming he left the garage door open. Yet he remembers that he carefully closed the garage door with the electronic remote control in the car. After consulting with his astronomy instructor, he comes up with an alternative explanation for why the garage door is open. Which of the following is PART of that explanation?

A) The Sun was so bright and high in the sky in December in Canada that it got into his parents' eyes
B) There was an eclipse of the Sun
C) It was a time of solar maximum, and there had been a big flare on the Sun earlier
D) No aurorae had been seen in the sky for many months
E) The number of sunspots had reached an all-time minimum