I see a lot of videos and shows where, if a person gets thrown out of an airlock, they immediately freeze to death. Disregarding the usual Hollywood exarcebation, WHY is space “cold” if the Sun generates so much heat radiation that it warms our very planet every day? Shouldn’t space be “warm”, then?
In: Physics
Here on earth, we have a lot of atmosphere between us and the sun’s rays. So the sun only warms us directly a little, most of the warmth we feel is from the air warmed around us.
In space, there is no air. Which means there is no air to warm us, and no air to shield us from direct light. This means that if you’re in the shade, it’s incredibly cold as there is no air around us to retain some of that heat. Similarly, if you’re in the direct light of the sun, it’s incredibly hot as all the energy that would have been absorbed by many layers of atmosphere is instead absorbed entirely by you.
If you were an astronaut in a spacesuit, facing the sun, your front side is going to be extremely hot, and your back side in the shade would be extremely cold. If you were not in the spacesuit, your front would cook even while your back froze.
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