hypothetically...

[spaced]

if you could tke you space suit off in space: -

1. what would space smell of ?
2. what noise or sounds would you hear?
3. would it be cold/hot/warm?

[Catso]

1/ Probably nothing, as there are so few molecules drifting about in it, so nothing to smell. And then your nose would freeze.
2/ Nothing - no air to transmit sound.
3/ Cold. But you would probably die before feeling the cold much.

[Peter Pedant]

ah Caaaam aaan !

I think there would be silence - dead silence

[Clanad]

I would agree with catso with the exception of hot/cold... one the purpose of the space suits worn by the astronauts is to keep them warm enough on the shaded side and cool enough on the sunward side. While the temperature of space approaches absolute zero (K), the sunward side is extremely warm... so halfbaked and half broiled... not unlike some of the cakes my daughter attempts...

[kempie]

Space is not a complete vacuum. Dotted within are numerous vast gaseous clouds which would indeed smell.

http://www.labnews.co.uk/new_labnews/article.p hp?artid=1017&categoryid=2&scheme=2

[Clanad]

Ecept, kempie estimates of densities of such clouds appears to be on the level of 10^3 - 10^ atoms/cm^3... maybe 1 molecule per cubic 0.001parsec... far to wide spread to be actually inhaled and smelled, don't you think?

[Clanad]

That should read 10^6...

[Catso]

I don't disagree with you Clanad, in respect of if the sun shone on you you'd be warm, but I do think the eventual, and more likely, outcome would be that you'd freeze.

Would it be true that the heat from the sun would overcome the loss to space?

In the film Apollo 13, which I believe did it's best to be reasonably accurate, the ship and the people in it were freezing. Surely that would have had sunshine on half of it.

[kempie]

Clanad - I'm confused by your interpretation of the density of molecular clouds.

10^3 - 10^6 (1,000 - 1,000,000) atoms/molecules per cubic centimetre equates to 10^9 - 10^12 molecules in a cubic metre.

If you were to (hypothetically) inhale the trillion molecules within 62cm in all directions of your nose, i.e. a sphere of 1m�, would this not be sufficient for detection?

[mibn2cweus]

Smell: Close your mouth and pinch your nose and you will experience the difficulty of inhaling in the near vacuum of space.

Sound: is the mechanical energy of air or another medium, therefore no sound except for the stray meteoroid striking your eardrum.

Temperature: The temperature of space at the radius of the Earth is cold but actually well above freezing at seven degrees centigrade, perhaps a bit cooler than the average temperature over the surface of the Earth. You would want to be spinning to balance the extremes of sunlight and shade but your shaded parts would not freeze immediately because heat transfer would only be due to radiation since there is nothing (no air) to transfer your heat to.

Pressure, on the other hand, would soon become a problem, especially if you were to try to hold your breath your lungs and eardrums would burst, POP in stereo.

You might have a minute to enjoy all this before perminent damage occured due to lack of oxygen.

space exposure

[spaced]

cheers to all of you!

Spaced ESQ