Can we create a shield to protect Earth from solar storms? – Physics World
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Stars and solar physics
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Home »<br>Astronomy and space » Stars and solar physics » Can we create a shield to protect Earth from solar storms?
Stars and solar physics
Research update
Can we create a shield to protect Earth from solar storms?
24 Jun 2026
Solar storm Schematic showing how the Sun’s magnetic field and releases of plasma directly affect Earth. (Courtesy: SOHO (ESA & NASA))">
Solar storm Schematic showing how the Sun’s magnetic field and releases of plasma directly affect Earth. (Courtesy: SOHO (ESA & NASA))
An artificial buffer composed of a photoionizing material released into space at the edge of Earth’s magnetic field could hold off powerful solar storms that potentially pose a risk to modern civilization.
The plan to put a buffer in place is called StormWall, proposed by space plasma dynamicist Brian Walsh of Boston University, and Dan Welling and Zhenguang Huang of the University of Michigan.
Solar storms are triggered when a coronal mass ejection (CME) on the Sun launches a vast cloud of charged particles towards us. If this cloud hits us, the charged particles can overwhelm Earth’s magnetic field. Magnetic reconnection, the process of magnetic-field lines snapping under pressure from the solar storm and joining back together, inputs much of the CME’s energy into Earth’s magnetosphere, where it can make its way down to the surface via charged particles stored in Earth’s radiation belts.
“Magnetic reconnection is the gateway by which energy comes from the Sun into Earth’s space environment,” Walsh tells Physics World.
The efficiency with which magnetic reconnection accomplishes this is governed by the magnetic field’s strength and direction, plus the density of plasma – ionized atoms and molecules – in Earth’s magnetosphere. The stronger the field strength and the lower the plasma density, the more energy reconnection deposits on the Earth.
Bolstering our defences
Although we cannot change the magnetic-field strength, “we can increase the plasma density by depositing material into space that can be photoionized,” says Walsh.
Nature already does this to a modest extent. Atoms and molecules leak from the upper atmosphere and are photoionized by solar ultraviolet light. This involves knocking an electron off an atom or molecule, thereby giving it an electric charge that allows it to interact with the magnetic field. The ionized materials follow natural “drift paths” along magnetic-field lines to the edge of the magnetosphere.
StormWall intends to bolster these natural defences by adding large quantities of material. In their work, Walsh, Welling and Huang suggest that a group of six spacecraft placed in geosynchronous orbit and each carrying the equivalent of a dozen fuel...