Editor’s note: Solar flares, which erupt from the surface of the sun, occur periodically and can, at times, disrupt electronics on and above Earth. In the past few days, solar activity has spiked. Jonathan Makela, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Illinois, studies such phenomena, known as space weather. He develops instruments that monitor disturbances in Earth’s upper atmosphere and ionosphere – the ionized portion of the atmosphere that represents the boundary with space.