Many of us have heard that if we were ever to wander out of our spaceship we would certainly explode, but this is not exactly the case.

In reality, you would disintegrate. Your eyeballs would explode, your lungs would turn to pulp, and your blood would boil, but you wouldn't explode. Small consolation!

Now, what about that "blood will boil" thing? That just means that your blood would turn into vapor. The reason for this isn't heat, but because the pressure of the atmosphere in space is well, nonexistent. The good news is if your friend pulls you back into the spaceship fast enough, your blood will return to liquid.

(In the interest of accuracy, I should point out that I have not personally tested that last assumption.)

------------------
Why rely on ancient thoughts to make our point? Can't we all just be original?

------------------
Pindead, Pindrop, Pinocchio, Pincushion, Pinwheel, Pinochle

------------------
Pindead, Pindrop, Pinocchio, Pincushion, Pinwheel, Pinochle

------------------
Sandalwood's Cosmic Creations: Working with the magic of love....

------------------
Sandalwood's Cosmic Creations: Working with the magic of love....

JoJo is absolutly correct on the boiling of bit. Your blood would indeed boil due in a high vaccuum like space. But since there is a complete vaccuum, the evaporation of your cell's gases and liquids would be so quick that you would explode. After all, an explosion is just a rapid expansion of gas. My physical chemistry advisor concurs with this analysis. If there is a complete vaccuum, then a gas will expand infinitely and cause you to explode.

This is similar to what happened with Payne Stewart last year. According to Henry's law, the concentration of a gas in solution (oxygen in your blood in this case) is equal to the constant for the gas at that temperature and the partial pressure (PP) of the gas in the atmosphere. Oxygen's PP is only 0.21 atmospheres, or about 21% of the total Earth atmosphere at sea level and 25C. At higher elevations, the partial pressure is much less, so the concentration in your blood would change. Gases, and solutes in general always flow from higher concentrations to lower concentrations, so the oxygen would leave your system very fast. So in about five seconds, everyone in the plane died of suffocation when the cabin lost pressure. If there was no atmosphere, the entire plane would have exploded as would the passengers.

Hope this clears things up.

DS

[This message has been edited by Deth Staar (edited 04-20-2000).]