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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.
Time evolution of a simulated geomagnetic storm, with and without the StormWall.
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.
