We determine systematic regions in which the bigraded homotopy sheaves of the motivic sphere spectrum vanish. amongst these is the sphere spectrum ½ := Σ ∞ P 1 Spec(F ) + . We denote this object by ½ because it is the unit for the symmetric monoidal product on SH A 1 (F ) given by the smash product.Equivalence between P 1 -spectra is detected by the bigraded homotopy sheaves, π m+nα X for m, n ∈ Z, which are defined as the Nisnevich sheafification of the assignmentHere [ , ] SH A 1 (F ) denotes the hom-set in SH A 1 (F ) and Σ m+nα denotes smashing with (S 1 ) ∧m ∧ (A 1 0) ∧n . Since every motivic spectrum is a ½-module, the bigraded sheafplays a fundamental role in stable motivic homotopy theory, analogous to the stable homotopy groups of spheres in topology. We will refer to π m+nα ½ as the (m + nα)-th motivic stable stem, and to the Z-graded sheaf π m+ * α ½ as the m-th Milnor-Witt stem.The motivic stable stems (and their global sections, π m+nα ½ := π m+nα ½(F )) have been objects of intense study since Morel's analysis of the 0-th motivic stable stem in [15]. That paper launched his program [16] to identify the 0-th Milnor-Witt stem with K MW − * , the Milnor-Witt K-theory sheaf, explaining the nomenclature. In further work [19], Morel shows that ½ is connective, meaning that m-th Milnor-Witt stems are 0 for m < 0. Beyond Morel's theorems, little is known about Milnor-Witt stems over a general field. Röndigs-Spitzweck-Østvaer [24] determine the 1-st Milnor-Witt stem as an extension of K M * /24 and a certain sheaf related to Hermitian K-theory; this vastly generalizes work of Ormsby-Østvaer [22] for fields of cohomological dimension less than three. All other computations are limited to specific fields, and are generally only known on global sections 2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary: 14F42.