what would happen if you burst a baloon filled with air in outterspace?

Question

if you took an oxygen tank filled with air in space would the vaccuum of space deplete the air in it,and create a pocket of air where no air existed.?

Answer 1

You have to think about pressure. On earth, there is pressure inside the balloon which makes it expand. There is also pressure outside the balloon slightly less than the pressure inside. In space, the pressure outside would be much less. Any gas will expand to fill any container. The gas inside the balloon would expand until it exploded. I bet if you took a tied balloon with almost no air in it into space, it would expand to a blown up size.

Answer 2

Now which is it?! A balloon you're talking about, or a tank filled with oxygen gas . . . First of all, there would be NO pocket of air created, for the gas would quickly disperse in the vacuum of space. A balloon would most likely not burst unless a micrometeorite hit it, or you deliberately stuck a pin in it! If it did burst the air inside would quickly dissipate into nothingness. You might have the balloon pieces come flying at you, but most likely they would be flying away from you at a rapid rate of speed in every possible direction!!!
As for the burst oxygen tank, . . hope you're NOT holding onto it, or anywhere near it when it blows!!!!! It could really ruin your day up there in space!
The gas inside would once again, rapidly dissipate into nothingness, but there would be way more gas to dissipate, then inside the balloon, assuming you meant a toy balloon.
The tank would probably still be mostly intact, and fly off away from you, or unfortunately, into you at a high velocity, like some kind of rocket taking off!!!
This sort of thing, is exactly what happened to our astronauts in the ill fated Apollo 13 way back on April 13th, 1970!

Answer 3

What would happen if you burst a balloon filled with helium on earth? Atmospheric pressure is only 14 and a half psi over vacuum. Where does the air go? It scatters very quickly as the atoms are excited and pressed closer together than what they want to be.... An even more fun question is what happens to WATER in a vacuum at room temperature? You can actually boil water at just above room temperature in a vacuum.

Answer 4

The difference in density more or less explains why the helium balloon rises. But it does not answer the problem of the increase in PE. All that means is that the balloon has aquired more energy because it has moved that much further from the ground. The two are not the same thing, and they are not related in the thought experiment that you have conceived, which does not mean that it is a poor idea. If you were to put a hole in the balloon so that all the helium would escape into the atmosphere, what ever was left would rush at a faster and ever greater speed as the PE was converted to KE.

Answer 5

The air would rapidly dissipate into nothingness. You could not create a "pocket" of gas, as there would be no tension to hold the molecules together in a mass. Basically, the oxygen molecules would become evenly distributed across the entire universe.

Answer 6

The emmence pressure within the baloon would hold up in space. BUT if it DID, as soon as u popped it the baloon pieces would fly to you like shrapnel.