A team of researchers has put forward a proposal to build a space shield to protect Earth from devastating storms. The Sun releases an extraordinarily powerful storm roughly once every century, and if one were to strike today it could destroy every satellite orbiting Earth, knock out power grids and the internet, and expose astronauts to lethal doses of radiation. According to Aram News, a team of researchers has proposed a space shield they have called "StormWall," designed to protect the planet from the worst of its effects — an idea experts describe as "largely feasible."
According to the website Live Science, a supercharged solar superstorm is hundreds of times more powerful than ordinary storms, and if one struck today it would destroy the space and ground infrastructure upon which the entire world depends.
The new study presents a proactive solution, with the researchers proposing to launch 6 bus-sized satellites into a geosynchronous orbit at an altitude of 36,000 kilometres.
There, this small swarm would wait until the detection of an "imminent major solar storm," at which point it would release large canisters of reactive gas — such as barium, lithium, or sodium — around the edge of Earth's magnetosphere, forming a vast wall of plasma that would act as a giant airbag, softening the impact of coronal mass ejections and deflecting them away from the planet.