Terrestrial space weather protection through human-produced mass-loading
Abstract
While humans become more reliant on Earth's space environment, the potential for significant harm from severe space weather continues to grow. As structures from the sun reach Earth's magnetosphere and space environment, they deposit energy that fuels geomagnetic storms. Currently, space weather researchers work to predict the timing and intensity of space weather events, often providing warnings of several days prior to the initiation of a strong geomagnetic storm. Here a new paradigm is presented where, rather than prediction, active steps are taken to mitigate the impact of solar wind structures through temporarily modifying Earth's magnetosphere. Global magnetohydrodynamic simulations are used to demonstrate that artificial mass-loading Earth's dayside magnetosphere can fortify Earth's space environment against strong space weather events. The simulations and supporting analysis use realistic mass-loading from model spacecraft at geosynchronous orbit to show the validity of the enabling physics as well as technical feasibility with current technology. The results demonstrate that with modern technology, the intensity of a major geomagnetic storm could be actively reduced by 50 percent or more, protecting technology and human life.