Eli5: Could you create a vacuum stronger than space, and take a sample of the contents of space?
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You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a vacuum is. This is ok! Let me explain.
A vacuum is created by, if you will, the presence of nothing. No atoms, at least. Perhaps some energy and radiation but no matter. No mass. No thing.
Things move into a vacuum because of other forces acting upon them. On the surface of the earth, a vacuum seems to “suck” bit that is quite the opposite of that is happening. The void of nothingness that has been created has tons and tons of air molecules and atoms and whatnots all stacked up on top of each other all the way out until gravity can’t hold them any more. That’s heavy! So, the atmosphere actually pushes on the outside of things, trying to fill that void. So, when you make a vacuum with your mouth to use a straw, the atmosphere is actually pushing the drink into your mouth by the sheer weight of all that air around you.
But why doesn’t the air crush you? Well, that’s why our skin will bulge and flesh redden when introduced to a vacuum. We were born under pressure. Evolved in it. Introduce it to a vacuum and our insides, like the atmosphere and with assistance *from* the atmosphere, try to rush in. One part being squeezed by the atmosphere and it trying to get you into that empty space, one part our bodies having a lot of dissolved gases and things that like to expand under a vacuum.
But that is a perfect vacuum. The “suction” created by, say, a vacuum cleaner is most likely to give you a bad red mark from blood vessels bursting and blood trying to pool into the vacuum… But nothing *too* serious.and even then, only if you left it on there for a good while. The power they draw would be harmless for a moment.
Even in a (near) perfect vacuum, a human can survive for a few moments with only some edema (fluid pooling in tissues it shouldn’t pool in) and some temporary sense loss (sight and hearing, I believe.)
I would have to look it up for accuracy, but in short, an astronaut was once accidentally exposed to a near perfect vacuum in a training facility and survived. Bonus content to look up.
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