Eli5 Shouldnt astronouts freeze to death when they exit their spaceships?
In: 0
Yes they should, but they don’t walk out wearing shorts and a polo shirt. They have space suits that have insulation from heat/cold and heaters also equipped in them.
No, they’re more in danger of overheating.
This is because of the lack of an atmosphere to transfer heat into. Instead, they have to radiate heat which is a much slower process. This means that their own body heat going into the suit would be more of a danger to them. The suit of course has things built into it to help with that.
Plus if they’re in direct sunlight that’s really hot.
Even if they went out an airlock without a suit they wouldn’t just instantly freeze for the same reasons, even if in shadow.
Heat has to transfer from something _to_ something, and space is (kinda by definition) empty; vacuums are very good at insulating (we use this in many of our insulated cups on earth – a vacuum is between the inner and outer walls, preventing most heat transfer).
_Eventually_ the heat will radiate away in other forms, but they’ll be long dead before that happens.
Astronauts on EVA wear spacesuits, specifically designed to help maintain the temperature of the occupant as well as thick insulation. Cooking inside a suit is a risk, given there’s no way to dissipate the heat the body generates.
That’s why space suits are so chonky. It needs a ton of insulation and heating to prevent freezing.
But also, heat doesn’t escape into empty space very well. There’s literally nothing to absorb and carry it away, like air or water does in our normal lives. It can only escape as radiation.
Besides the other answers here I would just like to point out that the morbidly cool fact that you wouldn’t freeze, you’d boil cold. States of matter depend on temperature and pressure, and there’s almost no pressure in space. You might pour off yourself like a piece of dry ice
I guess not just freezing, but also burning depends of their distance from the sun (or direction). But I think the sapcesuits were capable of sustaining those extremes to protect the wearer.
What’s more alarming are the spacedusts containing unknown elements or substances that stuck to their suits that maybe harmful for them/us humans, due to our bodies being unfamiliar with those things.
No.
The idea that space is cold is mostly wrong. It’s certainly not helpful.
Temperature is a property of matter. Since there’s virtually no matter in space, it doesn’t really make sense to describe the temperature of space in most cases. Certainly not on the scale of a human.
Since there’s no atmosphere to conduct heat away, that means you lose heat more slowly than usual. You only lose heat through radiation, so you would cool but fairly slowly.
So then whether you gain or lose heat depends on where you are. If you’re in direct sunlight, you’re actually gaining more heat than you lose. Spacewalks are generally performed in sunlight (for the obvious reasons), therefore astronauts are generally more in danger of overheating than freezing.
Spacesuits have water running through them to keep them cool. The closest any astronaut on the ISS has come to death was when this water leaked and flowed into their helmet, and they almost drownef in space. Terrifying.
It varies from risking freezing to death or burning to death depending if they are in sinking or shadow. However the insulation on the suits is very impressive. I heard an interview with Tim Peake, a British astronaut, on a podcast and one of the things they asked about was this very thing. He explained the suit is made of 14different layers of insulation so they can withstand the temperature range. There are only one set of heaters built into the suit and that’s in the fingers. The rest of the heat is provided by the wearers own body.
Eli5 Shouldnt astronouts freeze to death when they exit their spaceships?
In: 0
Yes they should, but they don’t walk out wearing shorts and a polo shirt. They have space suits that have insulation from heat/cold and heaters also equipped in them.
No, they’re more in danger of overheating.
This is because of the lack of an atmosphere to transfer heat into. Instead, they have to radiate heat which is a much slower process. This means that their own body heat going into the suit would be more of a danger to them. The suit of course has things built into it to help with that.
Plus if they’re in direct sunlight that’s really hot.
Even if they went out an airlock without a suit they wouldn’t just instantly freeze for the same reasons, even if in shadow.
Heat has to transfer from something _to_ something, and space is (kinda by definition) empty; vacuums are very good at insulating (we use this in many of our insulated cups on earth – a vacuum is between the inner and outer walls, preventing most heat transfer).
_Eventually_ the heat will radiate away in other forms, but they’ll be long dead before that happens.
Astronauts on EVA wear spacesuits, specifically designed to help maintain the temperature of the occupant as well as thick insulation. Cooking inside a suit is a risk, given there’s no way to dissipate the heat the body generates.
That’s why space suits are so chonky. It needs a ton of insulation and heating to prevent freezing.
But also, heat doesn’t escape into empty space very well. There’s literally nothing to absorb and carry it away, like air or water does in our normal lives. It can only escape as radiation.
Besides the other answers here I would just like to point out that the morbidly cool fact that you wouldn’t freeze, you’d boil cold. States of matter depend on temperature and pressure, and there’s almost no pressure in space. You might pour off yourself like a piece of dry ice
I guess not just freezing, but also burning depends of their distance from the sun (or direction). But I think the sapcesuits were capable of sustaining those extremes to protect the wearer.
What’s more alarming are the spacedusts containing unknown elements or substances that stuck to their suits that maybe harmful for them/us humans, due to our bodies being unfamiliar with those things.
No.
The idea that space is cold is mostly wrong. It’s certainly not helpful.
Temperature is a property of matter. Since there’s virtually no matter in space, it doesn’t really make sense to describe the temperature of space in most cases. Certainly not on the scale of a human.
Since there’s no atmosphere to conduct heat away, that means you lose heat more slowly than usual. You only lose heat through radiation, so you would cool but fairly slowly.
So then whether you gain or lose heat depends on where you are. If you’re in direct sunlight, you’re actually gaining more heat than you lose. Spacewalks are generally performed in sunlight (for the obvious reasons), therefore astronauts are generally more in danger of overheating than freezing.
Spacesuits have water running through them to keep them cool. The closest any astronaut on the ISS has come to death was when this water leaked and flowed into their helmet, and they almost drownef in space. Terrifying.
It varies from risking freezing to death or burning to death depending if they are in sinking or shadow. However the insulation on the suits is very impressive. I heard an interview with Tim Peake, a British astronaut, on a podcast and one of the things they asked about was this very thing. He explained the suit is made of 14different layers of insulation so they can withstand the temperature range. There are only one set of heaters built into the suit and that’s in the fingers. The rest of the heat is provided by the wearers own body.
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