What would happen if?

Question

What would happen if you were in space and you breathed out?
Would your breath form bubbles or would it just be absorbed,and if it was absorbed ,what would it be absorbed by?
Space must be made of something,or else it would be anti-matter wouldn't it?

Answer 1

Well, ignoring the ill effects on your body, here is what would happen to the air:

> Would your breath form bubbles ...?

It would not form bubbles. In water, air bubbles form because of the balance between the air's pressure (pushing out) and the surface tension in the water (pushing in). But in space, there is no "pushing in" force to hold the clumps of air together. So, no bubbles.

> would it just be absorbed..?

It would not be "absorbed" by anything. A better description is that the air would "dissipate." Basically, all the air's molecules would just fly away from each other in all directions, until the air was so thin that you couldn't really call it "air" any more. This would happen in a matter of a few seconds. After that, the individual air molecules would follow separate trajectories just as though they were microscopic meteors. Some might go into orbit around the earth or the sun; others may collide with the earths atmosphere (and become part of it); others might just head out toward the stars.

> Space must be made of something,or else it would be anti-matter wouldn't it?

No. Anti-matter is something else; anti-matter has mass, gravity, electric charge, etc. just like "normal" matter does. "Space" is just the room that's left over when you take away all the matter (or the anti-matter, if any).

[Actually, according to quantum physics, even "empty space" is never really empty--but that's another story.]

Answer 2

If you had no space suit, you would have no choice but to breath out. You wouldn't last long though - but you wouldn't explode (despite the pressure difference) because of the strength & elasticity of your skin & other tissues.

Space is not a perfect vacuum; it has about 10 gas molecules per cubic centimetre in the 'local' regions. This is still many times closer to true vacuum than we have been able to create in Earth-based laboratories.

Because the gases of your breath would be far more concentrated than this, the pressure differences would disperse your breath in all directions - very rapidly indeed. This is not an absorption, but neither would it be bubble-forming as the 'medium' of space is way too thin to allow any bubbles to form.

Space, as I have already said, is not completely empty - however it would not necessarily be antimatter. Antimatter has mass and other properties similar to normal matter (yes, it really does exist), but true 'space' is absolute nothing. Einstein once summed it up beatifully by saying "space, as opposed to what fills space, has no separate existence".

I hope all this helps, but please feel free to drop me a line if you wish.

Answer 3

space is an almost-vacumm, as in it's the closest you're ever going to get. It would not form bubbles, or at least not one's you would see, as oxygen and CO2 etc isn't exactly bubble-making material. not enough water. anyway, it would move away from you in the direction you breathed out, at the same speed you breathed it out for ever, or until it was caught by the gravitational pull of something.

However, you wouldn't really get a chance, as breathing into space would mean you didn't have a space suit. You would die before you got a chance.

Answer 4

Outer space is composed of sparse matter such as thinly spread gas, dust, hydrogen plasma, ionized atomic nuclei, subatomic particles, and dark matter. Even the emptiest parts of space contain at least a few hundred atoms or molecules per cubic meter. The vacuum of space relates to pressure. Gravity of objects creates pressure. Pressure at Earth sea level is 101 kilopascals compared to pressure in outerspace at 10 picopascals.

The breath of air would most likely dissipate into the surrounding matter as the tendency would be to spread out the carbon dioxide molecules expelled from the breath. To form a bubble, one needs internal pressure of the air inside of the bubble and external pressure pushing on the outside of the bubble. As there would be extremely little pressure pushing on the outside of the bubble, the formation of a bubble would not be possible.

Answer 5

Technically it's not a complete vacuum, although its the closest we've ever come. But if you were ever exposed to this vacuum without a spacesuit, your blood would boil because of the extreme low pressure, you'd lose consciousness within a few seconds to a minute, and the pressure inside your body would cause you to swell to almost double your size. In likelihood, the pressure of trying to hold in the air would be too much and you'd be forced to breath out. But you're right, it is made of something. It's just it so close to nothing that when working with it, we should just assume that nothing is there.

Edit: You would not explode. Look at the research done by Robert Boyle. Pop culture likes to show it this way because it looks cooler. In reality, the elasticity of your body cells would prevent you from exploding.

Answer 6

I believe that space is not perfect vacuum. So whatever we "breathe out" should be sucked out and dispersed in all directions. There wont be bubbles neither would there be absorbtion. And the dispersed air molecules probably would be eventually attracted to the nearest gravitational pull.

Answer 7

In the new sci-fi film Sunshine, an astronaut named Mace must leave his spacecraft without a protective suit. He makes it through his exposure with only a case of frostbite. Could you really survive outer space without a suit? Yes, for a very short time.

Answer 8

What would happen if you were in space and you breathed out?

If you were in space and breathed out, the air pressure inside ur lungs will become nil,i.e, ur lungs will become vaccum like space so actually no physical change will happen in ur body
But you wil die due to lack of oxygen

Your breath won't form bubbles because their is no outer pressur in space so it will be lost into vacuum in billionsof tiny form.

But either ways if u r not in ur spacesuit ur body blood pressure will expand as their is no outside force to balance it.So at frst ur nose will start bleeding and then bloodwould seep from ur mouth and finally blood will squeeze out from every possible way(how would u like to bleed from ur A**?)
But u wont explode as the matter of ur body is flexible enough to hold u together

Space must be made of something,or else it would be anti-matter wouldn't it?

Space is not made of anything.Just like light is made of photons and not matter, space is vaccum ,i.e, it does not contain matter or atoms in itself.So u can call it anti-matter for it.(but u might get zero in ur test if u use that word for space!!!!)

Answer 9

I won't dignify your first two questions; others have done them more than justice.

But no, in fact, space does not have to be made of something. Space is made of nothing. You can engage in rhetoric all day about how close to a perfect vacuum it is. In practical terms, space is a perfect vacuum.

Answer 10

You wouldnt even get a chance to breathe out. As soon as your face was exposed in outer space you'd explode.