The effects of exposure to space differ greatly depending on which movie you're watching.
Some people freeze instantly…
...some swell and their eyes pop out…
...some simply suffocate...
...and some outright explode…
...but they’re all in the same ‘space’, so who’s getting it wrong?
I’m Stu, this Debunked, and we’re here to sort the truths from the myths and the
facts from the misconceptions.
So, what would actually happen? Would you suffocate, does your blood boil, would you
swell and explode or would you freeze? Maybe it’s all of them.
But for now, let’s throw away the science fiction and get a healthy dose of science
fact. The most significant dangers you’d face would be the lack of oxygen and the formation
of gas in your blood.
Due to the low pressure in the vacuum of space the boiling point of your bodily fluids is
reduced drastically, to below the regular human body temperature of 37 degrees C. But
your blood wouldn’t boil as you’re probably imagining it.
It would change state, meaning the liquid water in the body’s bloodstream and tissues
begin to turn into vapour and create gas bubbles in your bodily fluids. This is called Ebullism,
and it can be fatal, as these gases will attempt to escape out through your skin.
Astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson gave this analogy...
“it will try to escape in the same way, when you open the cap of a bottle of soda,
bubbles just appear out of nowhere inside the liquid, that’s what’s going to happen
to your liquid body.”
As the gases try to escape, your body can swell up to twice its regular size, you’d
be in an incredible amount of pain, but your skin can be stretched surprisingly far, so
you wouldn’t pop or explode, but the bubbles in your blood may lead to a blood clot which
could be lethal.
Next is the lack of oxygen…
So within around 15 seconds your body would have used up all of it’s remaining O2, which
would then lead to unconsciousness. Now I imagine you’re thinking, “ but I can hold
my breath for a minute or more!”, but it works differently in space. Due to the lack
of outside pressure, if you hold your breath, the air would expand quickly and rupture your
lungs. So really you need to breathe out immediately.
Now that your 15 seconds are up, you’re likely to be unconscious and the lack of oxygen
would soon lead to death by asphyxiation. Experiments and training accidents have indicated
that you could survive for around 1 more minute in a vacuum, but not much more. Things aren’t
exactly looking good for you, but if you were somehow rescued and taken back to an environment
of atmospheric pressure, then your body will most likely return to normal.
Past experiments showed that one test subject survived in a near vacuum after 3 and half
minutes, with no serious side effects, although others died in less than 3 minutes.
However in outer space, there are more factors to deal with.
If you did manage to survive the vacuum, and were in sight of the sun, then wow, you’re
having a bad day, because the high UV levels would give you horrendous sunburn within seconds.
This UV and other radiations, like gamma and cosmic rays, would mess with your DNA, cause
radiation sickness, damage brain cells and most likely cause cancer.
On the flip side, if you were in the shade then you’d be facing -100 degrees C, so
surely this is where the freezing comes from?
It seems logical, but the vacuum of space can have a funny effect on what we’re used
to here on Earth. If you were in line with the sun’s rays then, interestingly, you
would only feel slightly warm. And if you were in the shade, you’d only feel slightly
cool.
In order for your body to freeze, the heat in your body needs to transfer away from you,
and in the vacuum of space there isn’t much to transfer to, so the main form of heat transfer
is by thermal radiation. Now this would transfer heat away from you
much slower than the traditional methods we’re used to - conduction or convection. So freezing
would happen… but incredibly slowly.
So you’re sunburnt, mutated, suffocating and very slowly freezing to death, but you
do have around 15 seconds to get yourself to safety before you pass out, and if you’re
lucky you’ve got another minute or so, for someone to come and rescue you, before you
actually die.
I hope you learnt something new and, if you liked what you saw, then we’ve got plenty
in the pipeline, so subscribe because I don’t want you to miss a thing. Sorry, couldn’t
help myself.
If you have any suggestions for upcoming videos please leave a comment as we’d love to hear
them. Thanks for watching.