explosions in space...?

Question

If there were to be an explosion in space, given that space is a vaccum and oxygen is absent, what would happen? I have been pondering this for some time and think that assuming it were a rocket there would be an explosion and everything would move outwards symetrically and in the same direction the orginal object were moving. If there were no oxygen and a fuel was some how set alight what would happen? I have a vision of a space station in flames.?!

so bobby what happens when the flame reaches the outside? and i dont remember apollo 13 as i wasn;t born unless you are talking about the film in which case although it is a good film it is still hollywood fabrication.

Answer 1

An explosion is simply a sudden, rapid outward expansion. You do not need combustion. You can "explode" water if you keep it confined long enough (actually, it is the container that "explodes").

If combustion is involved, it is called a deflagration. The type of deflagration can be a detonation if the shock wave that propagates the combustion within the material is moving faster than the speed of sound in the material. this is what happens in TNT. Of course, the effect of a detonation is usually an explosion of something (if only the container that confined the TNT).

Both detonation and deflagration can generate a pressure wave that will propagate through the air and cause damage.

In space, where there no one for to give you no pain (sorry, wrong song), where there is no air, there is no shock wave. However, there can be an explosion consisting of "shrapnel" : bits and pieces of the container (including the spacecraft) that fly off in all directions, at very high speed, thereby carrying the energy outward.

If the explosion is symmetrical, then it will be as you describe. Uncontrolled explosions (unless super massive) are rarely symmetrical. In the case of Apollo 13, it was an oxygen tank that overheated and the overpressure blew away outer panels to one side. There was fire (in the wires running the stirring mechanism within the tank) prior to the explosion, not as a result of the explosion. The fire caused the overheating of the oxygen.

Answer 2

First, to dispell your mistaken belief that an explosion requires the presence of oxygen. Yes, the Appolo 13 explosion involved oxygen, but that is only because it was an oxygen tank, or some component thereof, that ruptured, not because the oxygen was reacting with any other chemical, and burning.

An explosion occurs anytime there is a rapid change of pressure. An explosion can occure completely without there being any oxygen 'to fuel it'. For example, if an aluminum soda can were filled with liquid nitrogen, and somebody tossed it into a campfire. The liquid nitrogen would heat up, expand, and at some point the energy of its expansion would overcome the strength of the weakest point on the can, and the can would explode.

This is more or less what happened in space with the Apollo 13 explosion, but with liquid oxygen, and no actual fuel for the O2 to react with.

So, no, there does not need to be any kind of chemical reaction, and therefore there does not need to be any kind of flames, for an explosion to occur.

However, if there were a chemical explosion in space, we would not see anything like flames leaping up from it, nor a mushroom cloud rising up from it, because those things require a strong gravitational pull for the motion called convection, which explains the motion of flickering flames and mushroom clouds, which rise because the particles of atmosphere in them are less-dense due to the heat, than the surrounding atmosphere, so they rise. Zero gravity, or near-zero gravity would cause both flames and clouds of smoke to form the shape of an expanding ball.

Further, for any explosion occuring in a space flight, it is entierely possible for some particles of the object to be shot backwards, so that they are no longer moving away from the vehicle's origin, but returning toward it. Nor, would it necessarily be symetrical. Back to my liquid-nitrogen pop can, it is entirely possible that instead of fragmenting into pieces, the can simply springs a leak in one side of the can, with the result of the can rocketing off into the opposite direction, or spinning in circles, like an untied ballon, or like some fireworks do.

Answer 3

Well, for the fuel to be functional in space, there has to be a supply of oxygen carried onboard, so the fuel would combust with this oxygen.

So an explosion could still happen.

TNT is a compound which can explode without external oxygen being added, although this means that it cannot be controlled so it functions as a useful bomb.

The pieces of the exploded craft would explode and shoot off in straight lines, in all directions if the explosion occured inside the craft, if it occured right on the edge, you'd get most of the craft shooting off in one direction and only a fraction of the mass shooting off in the opposite

Answer 4

Explosion is the result of very rapid chemical reactions. The reaction can take place without oxigen.

Hence to have an explosion like the Big Bang in space ,you need chemicals to combine to create the Explosion. Now what chemical materials were postulated by the Big Bang theory to cause the explosion in a vaccum could have been the result of nuclear fusion. HOwever the exact mechanism is a puzzle if the Big Bang theory was true.

Answer 5

Do you recall what happened to Apollo 13?
There was an explosion on board that ship, but they did have their own oxygen supply (obviously) to fuel it.
If there is any supply of oxygen present at time of ignition, there could be an explosion.
A space station in flames, although not a pretty thought, is a possibilty, at least as long as a supply of oxygen was present.

Answer 6

I think you've already guessed that it would be nothing like the movies.

Yes, the only oxygen available to fuel the explosion would be that on the ship. Depending on whether they were in orbit around a large body (earth, moon, another planet) or not would determine what path the debris would take. If they were far out in space, most debris would move in straight lines directly away from the defunct ship, only to be caught in the gravitational pull of the next planet or star it encountered.

Answer 7

Without a supply of oxygen, it is likely that no fire would take place. If a hull breach occured, this would send everything in the pressuized compartment to be expelled.
It has been proven, the human body can sustain a vacuum for a very few seconds, if air from the lungs is exhaled and the eyes held tightly shut!

Answer 8

"If you were actually in a battle..." then you might not be on Earth. Unless your ship was actually hit or firing weapons, you would not hear the direct sound of the weapons. However, I suspect that space weapons would be devices with a lot of energy (I mean, A LOT). It is possible, for example, that you could still hear some sounds (not the real sound of the explosions) that may be caused by the effect of the weapons energy field interacting with the ferromagnetic elements of the hull of the ship (causing the plates to vibrate with the weapon's magnetic field, for example) or actuve UV filters flichering on and off rapidly in response to intense UV light generated by the impact of the weapon's ray with the hull of another ship. But these would be sounds generated on board you own ship, not the sounds of the weapon itself or of the explosions themselves.