Janet Loafman, age 16, of Pfafftown, N.C.,”for her question:

What are sunspots?

You might think that our glorious sun had a perfect complexion. But this is far from the truths The face of the sun is never smooth and more often than not it is speckled with rashes of sunspots. The golden face which appears to b e so smooth, is actually a cauldron of seething gases, Every few minutes, hot gases from below well up to the surface. They come forth in patches called granules, round, hot areas about 700 miles wide. Other areas are speckled with smaller upheavals called faculae, a word which means little torches. But the scants complexion problems do not end with granules and faculae. It is constantly plagued with spots many thousands of miles wide.

In 1946, one rash of sunspots covered an area of 5700 million square miles. The huge group of dark blotches passed across the golden face as the sun rotated on its axis from east to west, Zhey appeared again at the eastern side and made a second and a third trip across the face of the sun. Altogether, the dark rash lasted 99 days. Another rash, almost as large, occurred during the early part of 1947.

Naturally, no sensible person looks directly at the sun, for its brilliance is too much for our delicate eyes. A dark filter or other special equipment is needed before we can look Father Sol in the eye. Then the rash of sunspots looks like a big dark ink blot against the radiant background. Several spots in the rash may be separated or may be touching each other with their ragged edges.

Some weeks ago, we met the words umbra and penumbra in Andy’s story of the eclipse. Each sunspot also has an umbra and a penumbra. About a quarter of each spot is the dark central umbra and the rest is the ragged penumbra which surrounds it.

The sunspot is actually brighter and hotter than any source of artificial light on earth. ‘It appears dark only because it is less bright than the face of the sun surrounding it. The penumbra is usually about three quarters as bright as the normal face of the sun. Both the umbra and penumbra are quite a bit cooler than the surrounding surface.

Some experts belief these monstrous features are fierce solar storms in which cool gases pour out from the center at a mile a second. But this theory has not been proved and investigations are still going on.

There is one aspect of sunspots which affects us here on earth. It has been proved that each spot is a mighty magnet. The magnetic force from a large rash of sunspots is several thousands of times stronger than the earth’s magnetic field. As these sunspots rage, their magnetic force is felt by radio and telephone communications on earth.

There are times when this interference is worse than others. For the suns rashes get better and worse at regular intervals. These intervals, called sunspot cycles, average about 11 years. At the peak of a cycle, as in 1946 and 1947, there may be 500 rashes a year. Between this and the next peak, the number may drop to 50 rashes a year,