why a human in space would freeze?

Question

basically the space between objects is a void of nothingness apart from dense regions such as nebulae and possibly asteroid belts, but even still, unless your touching an object there is still a vacuum. what im wondering is that although the shaded space is about 280 C below zero, if there is no particles for heat to travel through, why does the coldness of space suck the heat out of the human body? what object is the heat being absorbed by? dark matter?

Answer 1

If you are shaded from the Sun, then your body emits heat by radiating infrared light. Space is not "sucking" out the heat from your body, your body is throwing it off. All warm bodies do this. That is how the Sun can warm the Earth from so far away through the vacuum of space.

If you are not shaded from the Sun, then your body is still throwing off heat, but it is also soaking up the heat from the Sun that hits it.

Heat can be transferred 3 ways, by conduction, convection and radiation. In the vacuum of space only radiation works. All heat in space ls gained and lost by radiative transfer. And by radiation I do not mean nuclear or radioactive, but merely something that radiates out in straight lines, like light radiates from a light bulb. The Sun is 6,000 degrees and that causes it to radiate mostly visible light. You body is less than 100 degrees and that causes it to radiate mostly infrared light.

Answer 2

You won't explode. While you would eventually freeze solid, it wouldn't happen quickly. So I guess the answer is neither. You will lose consciousness quickly and ebullisms will form all around your body as gasses in your blood and tissues come out of solution and turn into air bubbles inside you. Your skin is strong enough to keep from bursting though some capillaries at the surface may burst causing brusing and some blood seepage. A person can survive a short bout of vacuum exposure, but anything longer than a minute or two and you are pretty much screwed. The one thing to keep in mind if you are expecting to be exposed to a vacuum is to NOT hold your breath. In fact, you should exhale deeply. Holding your breath is a good way to damage your lungs, as you will not be able to keep that air inside you in a vacuum, it will rush out of you violently, causing damage. Evacuating your lungs as much as possible is the safest way. As for freezing, yes it is cold in space. However, there is no air or other such medium to carry heat away from you. As such, the loss of heat you will experience will be through simple radiation and that isn't really all that fast. In fact, if you are in direct sunlight you might even warm up.

Answer 3

campbelp is correct.

In space we only lose heat through radiation. This is not very fast. In direct sunlight you would not freeze because the heat of the sun would keep you warm, though it would also be very bad for you, as there is no protective atmosphere of the Earth to filter out the bad stuff.

If you weren't in sunlight, you would cool down very slowly, eventually freezing solid, but it would not be fast. Many movies depict people exposed to vacuum freezing almost instantly or at least very quickly, but this is highly inaccurate. This does not happen.

You also would not explode. The connective tissues of our body, like our skin, are strong enough to hold us together. Your body probably would expand though. You'd be unconscious within seconds and would die in a minute or two from asphyxiation.

Answer 4

Bcuz space is cold & hostile, no human flesh has ever been tested on the outer space without the suit, so we have no idea but we can be sure that a human won't survive the deep freeze of -273 degree celsius.

Answer 5

Infrared radiation causes a body at human body temp to rediate so much energy to empty space it would freeze in a few seconds. We radiate energy on Earth too but because the Earth is warm its just a little at a time. In space a human not protected would radiate a lot of energyuntil it got down to ~90k.

Answer 6

Space is a vacuum, so heat can't exist in it, so the temperature would be extremely cold. Plus, heat would be sucked out because of the vacuum.

Answer 7

energy always goes from places of high energy to places of low energy. although true there is no air so therefore no medium, but our bodies are always giving off energy too, but here there is more to be obsored. good question i would google it to get a more full answer.

Answer 8

freeze! without any pressure the boiling point of everything would decrease drastically, our bodies would boil ten times over and evaporate into the molecules and elements from which we are made of

Answer 9

Freeze? The human body would be torn apart and evaparate.

Answer 10

i really don't know but,you are very smart,are you a college professor