Joseph Towner, age 13, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, for his question:

How can sunspots interfere with earth communications?

Sunspots are immense events that occur on the seething surface of our starry sun, which is some 93 million miles from our global systems of communications. However, these solar upheavals do span the intervening space and cause all kinds of upsets in our earthly communications. They have been known to garble and disrupt radio signals and cause hours of total blackout in short wave systems. A sunspot is a dynamic magnetic upheaval, usually accompanied by stupendous solar flares. It is suspected that the major disruptions in our communications are caused by the fiery flares.

These immense spurts of flame spurt up thousands of miles above the sun and often spread into canopies thousands of times bigger than the earth. They carry aloft parti¬cles charged with furious energy and hurl streams of them out into space. Some are hurled in our direction and plunge through our upper atmosphere. They crash and scatter our airy gas molecules, especially in the lofty ionosphere. And the ionosphere is the sounding board of our radio systems. When it is bombarded with streams of charged solar particles it is unable to perform its regular duties.