In a hypothethical scenario, if a person is suddenly ejected out from the spaceship without any suit - will he

1. boil - due to zero atmospheric pressure , the blood inside his body will start to boil and turn to gas and he explodes

2. freeze - due to extreme cold ambient temperature of -200 degree Celsius?

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astr...ers/970603.html

He speculates only.... I think he is assuming 0 atmospheric pressure but not taking into consideration the temperature factor.

Anway, won't our body freeze after few minutes of exposure to -200 Celsius?

This post has been edited by soul2soul: Oct 12 2011, 03:26 PM

never been to the space....so dunno...

bro, save your breath if you have nothing constructive to say.



I would suppose that fluids which are exposed to the external environment would start to boil as per what you say, eg (saliva, stomach acid, etc.)

While one may try to hold his/her breath when that happens, the sudden expansion of gases in the respiratory system will force its way out, thus creating said scenario.

On the other hand, outer dry skin will freeze and decay. Blood may burst out, but will not boil unless it is outside of the body, due to the closed capillary system.



In other words, freezing on the outside, hot in the inside (if the blood came bursting out of your alveoli). Comments?

Maybe, the dead body expose to sun light/another heat source, that cosing the interior blood pressure to blow out.

Bcos of the temperature outside the space very cool, the inner body heat source (pressure) maybe consume by the outer space.

So, it maybe like a meat in the freezer, u cut the meat, the blood maybe already freez.

This post has been edited by peace230: Oct 13 2011, 05:58 PM

To all those who did not read the article linked by Ryu_Liew.

If you don't try to hold your breath, exposure to space for half a minute or so is unlikely to produce permanent injury. Holding your breath is likely to damage your lungs ... You do not explode. Your blood does not boil. You do not freeze. You do not instantly lose consciousness ... You do not instantly freeze because, although the space environment is typically very cold, heat does not transfer away from a body quickly ...

It also refers to an accident in a vacuum chamber at NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center where Jim LeBlanc was exposed to near vacuum for about 15 seconds. There's a video of the incident at http://vodpod.com/watch/3935109-nasas-jim-...m-accidentvideo

1st of all the temperature in space isn't exactly -200°C. To have a temperature there has to be something some kind of matter however it is a vacuum in space, therefore there is actually no temperature. So the only way the body can lose heat is through radiation.

In fact a vacuum would be considered insulating and this principle has been well exploited in making thermost flasks.

Interesting, never thought of that. There is no medium for conduction of heat in vacuum / space other than radiation. In that case, our body will probably boil first.

i dont think there are specific temperature for the vacuum.
because for termos, it keep the heat either cold or hot temperature.
just a medium can not be described?