Ask an Astronomer (2024)

Water poured into space (outside of a spacecraft) would rapidly vaporize or boil away. In space, where there is no air, there is no air pressure. As air pressure drops, the temperature needed to boil water becomes lower. That's why water boils much faster on a mountaintop than it does at sea level. In space, because there is no air pressure, water boils away at an extremely low temperature.

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Absolutely, when it comes to space, there's a wealth of fascinating and intriguing phenomena at play. Let's dive into the concepts highlighted in the article and unpack them:

1. Pouring Water into Space:

Pouring water into space, outside of a spacecraft, would lead to rapid vaporization. Due to the absence of atmospheric pressure in space, water would boil away at an extremely low temperature. The lack of pressure causes the boiling point of water to drop significantly, causing it to vaporize much faster than it would on Earth.

2. Helium Balloon in Space:

A helium balloon could ascend to extreme altitudes in Earth's atmosphere, but it wouldn't reach outer space. Once beyond the atmosphere, the lack of pressure gradient and buoyancy force would cease to exist, causing the balloon to expand due to the diminishing external pressure until it eventually bursts.

3. Beginning of Outer Space:

The boundary marking the beginning of outer space is often defined as the Kármán line, approximately 62 miles (100 kilometers) above sea level. This boundary separates Earth's atmosphere from space.

4. Sound in Space:

In the vacuum of space, there's no medium (like air or water) for sound waves to travel through. As a result, sound cannot propagate in space, leading to the absence of audible sound.

5. Galaxies in the Universe:

Current estimates suggest there could be hundreds of billions to even trillions of galaxies in the observable universe. Each galaxy can contain billions to trillions of stars.

6. Age of the Universe:

The estimated age of the universe is around 13.8 billion years, determined through observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation and other astronomical data.

7. Center of the Big Bang:

The concept of a "center" of the Big Bang can be misleading. The Big Bang occurred everywhere in the universe simultaneously, and as space expanded, it did not expand from a single point into space but rather everywhere.

8. Size of the Universe:

The observable universe spans an immense distance of about 93 billion light-years in diameter. However, the actual size of the entire universe beyond the observable realm remains unknown.

9. Formation of the Universe:

The prevailing scientific model for the formation of the universe is the Big Bang theory. This theory proposes that the universe began as an incredibly hot, dense point and expanded rapidly, cooling as it did so, leading to the formation of matter, galaxies, and everything we observe today.

Each of these aspects contributes to our understanding of the vastness, complexity, and intriguing nature of the universe and space exploration. Exploring these concepts further reveals the remarkable interplay between fundamental physical principles and the mysteries that continue to captivate us about the cosmos.

Ask an Astronomer (2024)
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