Is outer space a vacuum?

Question

If it is, what about the countless dust particles and nebulas? Also, if a spaceship explodes in space, how will the explosion look? Will there be fire and for how long considering that there is no oxygen in space. Will the explosion be without sound? Has any spaceships ever exploded in outer space?

Answer 1

Well actually on thing first: the reason why on a spacecraft or in a spacestation air is sucked out into space, is because gas as being air rises and fills as much room as it can expand, but as space is empty it will try to consume that space. This gets vacuum mixed up with air/gas escaping.
So nebulas, dust, gas and other remnants can stay in one place. Although the gas expands and converts dark matter to a larger mass (process=0.000023% conversion). As also the mass expands, the same way as galaxies expand the universe like the particles of the nova gas.
If a spaceship or spacestation was to explode it would be a flash of light expanding on the particles that were ejected by the explosive expansion, feeding on the explosion power. Basically the explosion would push out the mass rather than the mass expanding on itself. The term of explosion in space is not yet literally confirmed but some people name it a "nova". Although it means "explosion of gas from gas cloud" to our sense. There may not be air but the dark matter would provide a vibe cushion. Although a smaller sound it will still be a "sound" that probably only certain ears can hear as well as the energy production would create a certain spectrum of sound.
Only man-made satellites have been broken and fallen to Earth, but I don't know of any explosions, actually they're 50% explosion proof I think.
Also think as if you're in a spaceship and you are travelling at 100 mph all heavier loose matter will be forced down by gravity and weight as liquid and gas and air as heavy loose matter to be heavy and travelling will cause these heavier loose matter to be forced into your face as you are gaining speed this is a vacuum of force "forced matter vacuum". With the door wide open while travelling will cause a pump or "matter pump vacuum". Making loose heavy matter to be forced to the bottom in gravity and backwards by force vacuum "also 'gravitional vacuum' ". This is called the "circulation vacuum". Like liquid you would see heavier elements go to the base and the lightest at the top this is the same physic as that of forcing heavier loose matter back in a spaceship as "circulation vacuum". This force is relative to gravity "relativity".

Answer 2

OK lets look at the reason why space has less pressure than here on earth and this may help explain why and how the universe works. alright anything of mass has gravity the more mass the more gravity it has the earth has a lot of mass and there for it has a significant gravity the gravity of the earth pulls on the mass of everything within its range just as the sun pulls on the earth. So the farther away from a massive gravity field you go the less pull it has on objects such as earth,water,gas. basically the atmosphere is held in place by the earths gravity the farther away the less hold so you get less pressure until you travel away from the earth to a point where the particles that occupy a space are no longer bound to the earth then you reach space imagine the earth as a big vacuum going over a rug that it has already went over millions of times. there isn't much left for it to pull in. So in summary particles try to fill spaces of lower pressure unless acted on by an outside force and in this situation the earths gravity is an outside force which holds everything we know in place as we hurtle around the sun. Now someone said a black hole was a vacuum well thats completly the opposite of the truth a black hole is called that because nothing can escape the massive gravity field it not even light so if ya look at this just like anything else that means there is an enormous mass at the center and pressure would be immense and probably beyond our comprehension now as for it being an actual singularity I would say probably not as there is no proof that it is. I would say its whole lot of mass though in the middle just imagine how much it would take to suck light itself into it. This would be an intresting train of though as to the big bang theory a massive black hole that swallowed basicly the universe comperessing to the point where the mass bliped out of existance and only pure energy was left which had no mass therefore no pull and everything expanded from that and as the plasma or whatever state that matter started to cool that was the early universe then ya go from there one particle attracts another til you get a astroid then a moon then a planet then a gas giant then it reachs a critical mass and ignites into an early star. anyway thats my theory how things work because sometimes its the simplest things that are the main truths of the universe.

Answer 3

No, not really. Interplanetary space is often thought of as a vacuum because masses containing fluids or gases tend to vent in to the lower pressure of the space that surrounds them. Its better to think of interplanetary and intergalactic space as being very empty yet contaminated with an infinite number of particles from the molecular level up to huge masses like the sun, planets, stars, comets, asteroids, black-holes and pulsars. Over eons of time the particulate and gaseous matter of space co-mingles and forms billions of new solid objects which may be new moons around an existing planet that has a dust belt or asteroid belt,or the assumed mysterious content of a black hole that has drawn in all of the matter which is pulled toward it by its unimaginably powerful gravitational force. Therefore it is true to say that physical objects in space behave as though they are in a vacuum even though gasses are present in an extremely rarefied concentration, whereas a true vacuum is devoid of all gaseous material. Conclusion outer spaces is vacuous though not a true vacuum.

If a space ship (Vehicle) were to have an internal fire, which would be possible because (assuming it carried human beings it would contain oxygen for life support). If the vehicle was unmanned a fire is still a risk because such vehicles often have fuel cells (fed by hydrogen and venting oxygen) on board to generate electricity if the vehicle's power demand exceeds that which can be provided by solar cells. Fire is also possible in the absence of oxygen of hydrogen because some metals contain oxides. Internal fires would look much as they do on earth except they would propergate more rapidly.

If a space vehicle were to explode in space its component parts and the burning gases would rush out from the position of the vehical very rapidly create an aura many times greater than the vehical itself which is because there is little to impede the expansion of the burning gases or the fragmented solids, which would be propelled away from the vehicals position on an eternal space voyage, by the energy of the explosion, . The appearence of the explosion would be that of a flash rather than a fire.

Answer 4

I suppose there wouldn't be any sound or fire (except that which is fuelled by the oxygen on the ship) as space has no air. I think the dust and nebulas etc you refer to are 'in' the vacuum that is space so don't stop it being a vacuum. I don't really know for sure as I'm not an expert - just what I vaguely remember from things over the years.

Answer 5

Just because space is a vacuum doesn't mean that matter cannot exist within it. An explosion from a spacecraft will radiate outward from the energy source. There will only be fire until the oxygen disperses and there is no sound where there is nothing to conduct a sound wave, such as atmosphere. Apollo 13 experienced an explosion but it wasn't so bad that they couldn't get the crew back home. Needless to say, the moon mission was scrapped.

Answer 6

I have dust in my vacuum...

anyway...
A vacuum is a volume of space that is substansively empty of matter, so that gaseous pressure is much less than standard atmospheric pressure. The root of the word vacuum is the Latin adjective vacuus which means "empty," but space can never be perfectly empty. A perfect vacuum, known as "free space", with a gaseous pressure of absolute zero is a philosophical concept with no physical reality, not least because quantum theory predicts that no volume of space is perfectly empty in this way. Physicists often use the term "vacuum" slightly differently. They discuss ideal test results that would occur in a perfect vacuum, which they simply call "vacuum" in this context, and use the term partial vacuum to refer to the imperfect vacua realized in practice.

The quality of a vacuum is measured by how closely it approaches a perfect vacuum. The residual gas pressure is the primary indicator of quality, and it is most commonly measured in units of torr, even in metric contexts. Lower pressures indicate higher quality, although other variables must also be taken into account. Quantum mechanics sets limits on the best possible quality of vacuum. Outer space is a natural high quality vacuum, mostly of much higher quality than what can be created artificially with current technology. Low quality artificial vacuums have been used for suction for millenia.

Vacuum has been a common topic of philosophical debate since Ancient Greek times, but it was not studied empirically until the 17th century. Experimental techniques were developed following Evangelista Torricelli's theories of atmospheric pressure. Vacuum became a valuable industrial tool in the 20th century with the introduction of the light bulb and vacuum tube, and a wide array of vacuum technology has since become available. The recent development of human spaceflight has raised interest in the impact of vacuum on human health, and life forms in general.

I imagine the explosion would look a bit larger as there are no other forces acting on it except the explosion itself. Fire would last as long as it has what it needs. once the fuel/oxygen was used up or beyond reach then its over. I think there was an apollo mission that had an explosion in space.

BTW there IS gravity in space.

Answer 7

see the outer space is kind of vaccum but like the sun is present in the universe so r the nebulas and the dust they travel byt e gravitational pull. u know the gravitational principal?.
if a space ship explodes there will be a sort of explosion but the sound will not be heard.
and no explosion has taken place in the outer space. mostly take place in the ionosphere or the mesosphere

Answer 8

space isnt a vacuum. a black hole is like that. and if a space ship exploded, there wouldnt be any fire, not for long anyway, there's no oxygen in space (the sun burns by hydrogen and other fuels that dont require oxygen)

Answer 9

Yes, because there is no air in outer space. I think that many movies about outer space have distorted what actually happens, they show a huge spacecraft exploding but the craft actually implodes, because of the pressure inside a vacuum (think about the old school experiments with the coke can in a vacuum, when the air is extracted, the can crushes itself (implodes)).

Answer 10

There is a theory that there is no empty place in universe,those space are filled by Plasma.if space ship explodes there will not be sound,the parts continue to rotate,slow down and it slowly comes down to earths gravity field and debris falls.It may burn in earths atmosphere or hit .Space debris will be a major hazard in future.