what would happen if you were to shoot a gun in space?

Answer 1

Gunpowder uses Potassium Nitrate as an oxidizer. So a cartridge does not require oxygen from the air to ignite.
The bullet would keep traveling until acted upon by some other force (hitting something, getting caught in a body's gravitational pull, etc...)

Answer 2

I don't know who's going through "thumbs-downing" all the answers, but they need to go take another dose of their medication......

Anyway, here's what will happen:

Everyone who says the bullet won't fire because of the vacuum of space is not considering that the bullets are self-contained, including the air. Left in space long enough, I'm sure the air would leak out of the bullets, as they're probably not sealed well enough for the full vacuum of space, but if you took one with you on a space shuttle mission, and fired off your gun during an EVA, it would still have enough to get the job done.

Now for the physics:

On Earth, The kinetic energy placed in the projectile is also placed into the Earth, "conducted" through your body. This is because of the Newtonian "equal and opposite reaction" law.
In space, the same thing would happen, but since you're not standing on the Earth for stability, you would fly backwards at a pretty good velocity.

Interestingly enough, we could use machineguns as a space propulsion system. They would simply be an alternate version of the rockets we use now. Rockets work just the same way, except they're firing much smaller projectiles (H20 molecules in the case of LOX rocket engines) at much higher speed much more often. They produce a lot more energy than bullets do, so that's why we don't use bullets. ;)

And of course, as everyone has stated, the bullet would go through space obeying laws of gravitation until at some time in the extreme future, it will either be captured by some object and orbit it indefinitely, or strikes something (becoming a man-made micrometeoroid) or burns up in some atmosphere out there where an alien child makes a wish on a shooting star. ;)

Some physics to chew on:
The kinetic energy of a 115 grain 9mm bullet is 482joules (E = 1/2mv^2 --where m = .00745kg, v = 360m/s.)

Put this same energy into a 100kg person:
482 = 1/2 * 100 * v^2
v = sqrt(482/50)
v = 3.10m/sec = 6.9miles per hour.

So firing off one round of a 9mm pistol would make you fly backwards at almost 7 miles per hour.

Answer 3

Contrary to many beliefs, the bullet will not go on forever. Although space is generally a vacuum, there still are traces of floating particles. The sun, for one, radiates solar particles into space (which we can see absorbed at Earth's poles - auroras). Secondly, gravitational forces exist in space at any one point, either big or small. Unless the trajectory was carefully calculated, the bullet will slow down rather than experience the speeding-up "slingshot effect". The bullet will spiral towards the gravitational pull (again, unless it's orbital radius and speed are coincidentally perfect for it to achieve orbit) and eventually crash into another object.

As for the ignition problem, there is none. Modern gun powder has been oxidized so that it does not need the environment's oxygen to fire, else rapid-fire machine guns would jam frequently as oxygen would be burned faster than it can be replaced back into the chamber. Plus, gun chambers are sealed from the outside so that the pressure from the ignition will have its greatest pushing effect on the bullet. The bullet will have a initial nozzle velocity faster than that on Earth because as pressure is created at one end of the bullet from the ignition, there is no pressure at all on the open end of the nozzle (space is a vacuum). Chemical reactions CAN occur in vacuums - so the gun will fire.

The vacuum in space will NOT destroy the gun. Although the atmospheric pressure on Earth does make it a little safer to operate a gun, it wouldn't be much more a hazard in space. Guns were built to withstand high internal pressure (from ignition) and high temperatures (especially machine guns). The air pressure within the gun is not great enough to bend any metal as it enters space.

Answer 4

The bullet will travel at the speed the gun was going, plus or minus the muzzle velocity (actually, the vector sum of the gun velocity plus the muzzle velocity. Depending on the velocity, the bullet can continue in orbit for a very long time. Suppose you are in a space suit outside the ISS -- so you are travelling at about 18000 miles an hour. Add 2000 feet per second (or about 1360 additional miles an hour. This will mean the bullet will have a higher apogee than the the ISS had. If you point the other way, you will have a slower bullet and a lower apogee. It could stay in orbit a long time. The gun and the astronaut holding it will experience Newton's law about opposite reactions. If the bullet weighs a ounce, at 2000 feet per second, the astronaut including his space suit weighs 250 pounds or 4000 ounces. So if the bullet leaves at 2000 feet per second, the astronaut will move backward at 0.5 feet per second. That is a negligible change in velocity for the astronaut.

Answer 5

Nothing, Smokeless powder needs Oxygen to Burn.
There are Guns made to fire Underwater, and the Powder has an Oxidizer.

1) The Bullet will travel outwards in a straight Line, until it encounters another Object or Force (like gravity). Theoretically, it could travel Infinite Distances.
2) You will start moving Backwards from the Bullet as an Action/Reaction event. Likely Spinning, as you do not have a Gyroscope, Unless you have the gun placed at your Center of Mass.

Answer 6

"Ah, an inquiry that warms the hearts of gun-toting physicists. The peacenik response might be...nothing. A gun cartridge holds the bullet or metal tip and the gunpowder (yup, they still use that stuff). The latter requires a spark, a nifty chemical reaction that involves oxygen, which tends to be sorely lacking in space. However, forward-thinking manufacturers have packed an oxidizer within the bullet casing. Whether that's sufficient for an explosive launch is up for much debate.

That doesn't satisfy our bloodlust, does it? We'll assume we can send the bullet on its merry way with the proper gun. The scenario then conjures up the classic physics poser of shooting the monkey. Since we find shooting a cute primate abhorrent, we'll sub in the garden gnome.

Where you're standing when you execute this maneuver, such as within a planet's gravitational pull, would affect the bullet's speed and path. As long as your aim is true, the bullet would travel a straight line (aka Newton's first law of motion) until some sort of force or object impedes it. Meanwhile, the recoil (Newton's third law) has pushed you back with an equal and opposite force.

The next question is, can you fire off another shot? A regular old earth gun likely won't cotton to its new environment and may seize up, blow up, or do something equally annoying. Plus, we've littered space with enough dangerous debris already, do we really need to have bullets go flying?"

Answer 7

"nolongerastory" doesn't realize that the chemicals contained in any standard round of ammunition have their own oxygen supply chemically contained within.

You shoot and it's "Action -- Reaction" time.

The bullet has a weight and an acceleration which it imparts on you by splitting the energy expended.

Whareas, on Earth, the bullet might have had a muzzle velocity of 600 feet per second, for as long as it is still in the chamber, accelerating toward the end of the barrel, you will be recoiled back by half the energy imparted.

I'm sure the bullet will travel infinitely in a straight line at a constant, but lesser velocity (unless acted upon by an external force), while you cruise backwards, perhaps spinning in the processas well, because you fired the weapon, holding it in a position which was not symmetrically balanced.

Answer 8

the bullet would never ignite due to the lack of oxygen in space and you would just be there dumbfounded but of course if you mean one of the "what if" scenarious the as all of the other people on this say it would react to newtons first law of inertia an object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force meaning if you shoot it (with oxygen) in a path where no planets gravitational pull or a random collision with an asteroid then it will go on forever of course someday it will hit something and 1200 ft per second and sart a war with aliens just kidding

Answer 9

The powder mix provides the oxygen for ignition so that is no problem. The slug would be ejected just like on earth. The main difference is that there is minimal if any gravity to slow down the object. It would continue to travel QUITE a distance. Eventually it would stop due to friction with hydrogen atoms or other debris in space. It would take a long time.

Answer 10

Nothing! There would be no explosive force to move said bullet. The hammer would drop and there would be no reaction. This a result of there being no oxygen in which the chemical, combustible gun powder would need to create its explosive reaction. You would have a bullet with a dot like indent in the backside of said bullet.
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