As humanity continues to expand its presence in space, the questions we’re asking are also getting grander in scale. Here’s an example: What if we could “stop” space weather? An ambitious proposal, published earlier this month in Space Weather, explores the possibility of a space-based system designed to fortify Earth’s natural defenses against damaging space weather, like solar storms. The system, dubbed “StormWall,” could use a constellation of spacecraft—six in the example design—to release material in geosynchronous orbit, where it would become plasma and drift toward the edge of Earth’s magnetosphere. By seeding Earth’s magnetosphere with plasma, the system would temporarily bolster its defenses against solar storms. “When you apply some really serious physics to it, it does work. And the amount of mass we need, the launch capacities—it’s all within our capabilities,” Brian Walsh, the study’s first author and an engineer at Boston University, said in a statement. “People have always thought, ‘space is huge, the sun is massive, we just have to sit here and take whatever it gives us.’ But what we found is that we can impact it.” Cosmic energy dump Geomagnetic storms occur when a “very efficient exchange of energy” from the solar wind into the space around Earth creates a major disturbance in our planet’s magnetosphere, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. While these intense currents create beautiful auroras, these disturbances can interfere with energy grids, satellites, and more.