dartel
Prized Citizen of ZV
Scifi's constant "space is cold" and instant "freezing" of someone/thing flushed out an airlock.
Space isn't cold, it CAN'T be cold. Temperature is a measure of energy, energy is a measure of subatomic motion within matter. Space is empty, for the most part, therefor there is no matter to be in motion. Therefore there is no temperature, hot or cold. And energy, temperature, can only be lost from an object in 2 ways, conduction and radiation.
Conduction is direct contact energy transfer from matter to matter, high energy to low energy. With no matter in space there is no conduction. Radiation is an extremely slow method of energy shedding, in fact dumping excess heat from spacecraft is one of the more difficult engineering hurdles to space flight. The ISS needs over 1600 square feet of radiators to dump its electrical and mechanical heat into space. If you read 2001, the Discovery One was described very differently than it was portrayed in the movie, it had a massive finned rear end that was actually a giant radiator.
A human body would take hours if not days to shed its heat energy through radiation to the point that its temperature would drop to freezing.
Not only that, but if you're in a star system at a comparable distance to the sun as Earth is, and are not behind a planetary body. The impact of stellar radiation makes the "space" effectively several hundred degrees. So not only would a body not freeze, it would actually cook!
STOP FUCKING INSTA-GROWING ICE OVER BODIES THAT GET EJECTED INTO SPACE!
Space isn't cold, it CAN'T be cold. Temperature is a measure of energy, energy is a measure of subatomic motion within matter. Space is empty, for the most part, therefor there is no matter to be in motion. Therefore there is no temperature, hot or cold. And energy, temperature, can only be lost from an object in 2 ways, conduction and radiation.
Conduction is direct contact energy transfer from matter to matter, high energy to low energy. With no matter in space there is no conduction. Radiation is an extremely slow method of energy shedding, in fact dumping excess heat from spacecraft is one of the more difficult engineering hurdles to space flight. The ISS needs over 1600 square feet of radiators to dump its electrical and mechanical heat into space. If you read 2001, the Discovery One was described very differently than it was portrayed in the movie, it had a massive finned rear end that was actually a giant radiator.
A human body would take hours if not days to shed its heat energy through radiation to the point that its temperature would drop to freezing.
Not only that, but if you're in a star system at a comparable distance to the sun as Earth is, and are not behind a planetary body. The impact of stellar radiation makes the "space" effectively several hundred degrees. So not only would a body not freeze, it would actually cook!
STOP FUCKING INSTA-GROWING ICE OVER BODIES THAT GET EJECTED INTO SPACE!
