When Italian and German researchers modeled a square-meter array of 1,482 neodymium magnets, the simulation showed roughly a fifth of incoming low-energy solar protons being deflected — suggesting a potential way for deep-space crews to reduce some of the mass they currently carry for radiation shielding.

When Italian and German researchers modeled a square-meter array of 1,482 neodymium magnets, the simulation showed roughly a fifth of incoming low-energy solar protons being deflected — suggesting a potential way for deep-space crews to reduce some of the mass they currently carry for radiation shielding.

When Italian and German researchers modeled a square-meter array of 1,482 neodymium magnets, the simulation showed roughly a fifth of incoming low-energy solar protons being deflected — without any power supply, cryogenic cooling, or moving parts. The work, published as a 2026 preprint, revives a long-standing engineering question: whether simple permanent magnets could shoulder part of the radiation-protection burden that currently forces deep-…