Smtplib: What does context argument means?

[Pythenx]

In lines 13 and 14 what exactly does context mean? Why do we need to use it?

import smtplib, ssl

port = 465  # For SSL
smtp_server = "smtp.gmail.com"
sender_email = "[email protected]"  # Enter your address
receiver_email = "[email protected]"  # Enter receiver address
password = input("Type your password and press enter: ")
message = """\
Subject: Hi there

This message is sent from Python."""

context = ssl.create_default_context()
with smtplib.SMTP_SSL(smtp_server, port, context=context) as server:
    server.login(sender_email, password)
    server.sendmail(sender_email, receiver_email, message)

[nilamo]

ssl is built upon using certificates to encrypt and decrypt data between two machines. Those certificates are held in a temporary context, so the encryption and decryption can take place. No context = no ssl.