British scientists are planning to see whether a Star Trek-style deflector shield could be built to protect astronauts from radiation, BBC reported on April 19. They argue that magnetic shields could be deployed around spacecraft and on the surfaces of planets to deflect harmful energised particles.
Scientists hope to mimic the magnetic field, which protects the Earth. Details have been presented at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting in Preston, UK.
There are a variety of risks facing future space explorers, not least of which is the cancer-causing radiation encountered when missions venture beyond the protective magnetic envelope, or magnetosphere, which shields the Earth against these energetic particles. The Earth's magnetosphere deflects many of these particles; others are largely absorbed by the atmosphere.
To create the deflector shield around a spacecraft or on the surface of a planet or moon, scientists need to generate a magnetic field and then fill it with ionised gas called plasma. The plasma would held in place by a stable magnetic field (without the magnetic field, the plasma would simply drift away).
This shield could be deployed around a spacecraft or around astronauts on the surface of a planetary body such as the Moon.
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