The Carrington Event was the most intense geomagnetic storm ever recorded. In September 1859, auroras were visible as close to the equator as Columbia and some telegraph stations were severely damaged by current induced in the lines. If a similar event occurred today, with a lot more more wiring to pick up current than just an embryonic telegraph network, the results would almost certainly be cataclysmic.
Various modifications to the grid have been proposed to avoid another storm of that magnitude bringing on a new dark age, but a recent paper in the journal Space Weather proposes a more radical solution: using the sun’s energy to create a massive barricade in space.
While the authors of the paper refer to this concept by the compelling name StormWall, it’s not a physical wall. It’s actually just gas, likely of alkali metal atoms, to be deployed by solar-powered satellites.
To oversimplify, the proposal is to release lots and lots of neutral gas in Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO), in what the researchers call “artificial mass loading” — the neutral gas would of course be ionized by the storm, but in so doing could absorb up to 50% of the incoming energy of the geomagnetic storm, frustrating its coupling to Earth’s magnetosphere. As a bonus, it would protect not just terrestrial assets like the power grid, but everything in a lower orbit than the mass load: everything from communication satellites in GEO to the International Space Station. Assuming its hasn’t been reduced to debris laying at the bottom of Point Nemo by then, anyway.
In simulations, the StormWall required 384,048 kg of gas, which is not exactly trivial. But even accounting for tanking, the researchers estimate that would only take about six launches of SpaceX’s Starship. Though that does assume its GEO capabilities end up being roughly equivalent to the massive vehicle’s projected 100-tons-to-Mars payload capacity.
It’s certainly an interesting hack to solve a problem that has caused a lot of worry these past decades. If you’re interested in learning more about the record-setting geomagnetic storm, we have a piece about the 1859 Carrington Event that should give you plenty of anxiety about the frailty of our modern infrastructure.
“You’re meddling with powers you can’t possibly comprehend.”
~Marcus Brody
Would this mean that it will cancel most of the northern lights?
It is hoped it will cancel the equatorial lights in the case of a big storm. And only for the few hours the gas will hang around.
If it’s only going to absorb half the storm energy there’s still going to be a nice northern (and southern) light show.
So…….
How do you plan on stopping that CME, that hot plasma that arrives a day and a half behind the big radiation burst?
These forces of nature are tens of orders of magnitude beyond anything we can deal with.
/See Space Elevators and wireless power transfer for more bad ideas.
Try again…..
This idea won’t work.
Sorry to burst your bubble…
Space Elevators all over again.
How about we build a walking path to the Moon?
“This idea won’t work”
Won’t work technically? As in if we get the metal there it won’t provide any protection from a solar event?
Won’t work politically? We’re unable to fund it?
Won’t work for some other reason?
You are going to keep this gas cloud in position against the force of X-45 flare?
How?
Is this an idea or a fever dream.
It feels like a plasma wave front particle accelerator to me, potential backfire spectacularly.
Maybe a superconducting distributed artificial magnetosphere spread across a mesh of satellites night be an interesting way to go, maybe poised between a Sun and Mars, perhaps we could thicken to the atmosphere a little.
Frankly the way things are going, humanity could do with another Carrington event.
You’d think rather find a way to use that energy to store in a capacitor or battery
If all it takes is wire and solar panels, how more efficient do they get during a solar storm
The way things go, we’d prepare for a Carrington event and end up getting a Miyake event.