Is outer space Hot or Cold?

[Thinyser]

In real life I mean.

I'm trying to get a good cross section of the American public and this is the most diverse form on these boards so...

Is intersteller space hot or cold?

[Marrowlight]

As I'm never leaving this planet myself (unless we get a hiccup one day and I get flung from it along with half of the US) I've never much cared myself....but I'd imagine cold.

[Marrowlight]

Yes.

coward!

[Spectre]

You need a button for "both".

It depends...
Take the moon for instance.
It has no atmo and therefore can't keep a constant temp. If you are standing in the light on the moon, you are going to be very hot thanks to solar radiation. If you are standing in the black of the moon, you are going to be very cold, no radiation.

[Thinyser]

You need a button for "both".

It depends...
Take the moon for instance.
It has no atmo and therefore can't keep a constant temp. If you are standing in the light on the moon, you are going to be very hot thanks to solar radiation. If you are standing in the black of the moon, you are going to be very cold, no radiation.

the question is "is INTERSTELLER SPACE hot or cold?" as in the vacuume that makes space up... not planets, moons, asteroids, comets, nebula, or anything else that is found IN intersteller space but the "space" itself.

Is "space" hot or cold?

[Thinyser]

Tacos

I don't want to hear about your sexual preferances.

Now, Vote for one of the options or be gone.

[Rallan]

In real life I mean.

I'm trying to get a good cross section of the American public and this is the most diverse form on these boards so...

Is intersteller space hot or cold?

Cold. Very very cold (but not quite as cold as intergalactic space). See all them stars up in the sky every night? Notice how we're effectively getting no heat whatsoever from 'em and the only reason we don't freeze to death at night is because heat from our sun is still trapped in the atmosphere?

Well out in interstellar space, there is no "our sun". The nearest stars will be a few light years away, and the energy you get from them will be virtually nonexistent. Interstellar space is basically just a few degrees above absolute zero all the time.

Even in a solar system, most of it's going to be pretty damn cold. Out here where Earth is, things are still nice and warm. If you're up in orbit and you're catching some sun, things can actually get pretty damn hot (our moon gets pretty damn hot during the day for example). Closer in, things are even worse hotter (Mercury's surface routinely gets up to around 700K during the day, hot enough to melt tin and lead). And even this close, if there's something between you and the sun you freeze. If you're hiding behind Mercury or Earth or Earth's moon or even a big enough asteroid, and the sun isn't shining on you, you get to experience what the icy chill of interstellar space would be like.

Further out than the Earth though and things get pretty chilly. Look at Mars for example. It's only twice as far from the sun as Earth is. It still gets around 25% of the energy from the sun that we get. But its daytime temperature almost never gets above the freezing point of water, even on the equator in the middle of summer. Most of the time it's down in temperature ranges that make Antarctica look pleasant by comparison. And that's just Mars, a planet which is generally considered to be pretty close to the sun. Once you get past Mars, things get real cold real fast. None of this temperaturs comparable to Antarctica, we're talking temperatures comparable to interstellar space.

[Prince Cherico]

If you dont have solar raditation on you your going to freeze to
death well after you die from the lack of air and exploid due to
decompression....
So space is cold and pretty deadly

[Dead Boy]

Is intersteller space hot or cold?

Space is neither hot nor cold.

Matter gets hot and cold depending on the amount of energy it stores and radiates out into space. Space in and of itself is a vast void of nothingness, generally speaking. As such "nothing" can be neither hot nor cold because it has no substancetive matter to it that can be hot or cold.

For instance, the coldest thing in our Solar System is Pluto, with a surface temp hanging at around 43 K (according to Space.com), just a little bit above absolute zero. The surrounding space itself is neither hot nor cold; it's simply where the heat of the dwarf-planet is radiated out into. That radiated heat does not "heat" space itself because there is nothing to heat. It's just empty space that the thermal radiation travels through. If that heat reaches something solid, that thing can be heated by the radiant energy, but the energy diminishes the further it travels and expands through space.

[Shadyslug]

This is grand...

[sennin]

"Yes, it would be really cold. Temperature measures the energy per "degree of freedom" (i.e. way something can move) of whatever molecules happen to be around. So, it it becomes so cold that the molecules stop all together, then this is the "absolute zero" temperature. On the Celsius Temperature Scale (i.e. water freezes at 0, and boils at 100) this takes place at -273 degrees C. "

answer found on....
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_a ... 0301b.html

Cheater! Going to NASA for the "truth"

[glitterboy2098]

both.

the background temp of the vacuum is a mere 3 kelvin. this is pretty cold by any standard.

BUT

Vacuum is a horrible heat transfer medium and a great insulator. anything in space will not be able to get rid of it's heat except through radiative methods. so if you were to step outside (ignoring decompresson and lack of air), you start to broil as your own body heat and the heat you gain from the sun's light and radiation build up inside you, but your ability to get rid of heat comes to a screaching near halt.

this is why the most important part of a space suit is the cooling system, not the heater. and why most real spacecraft have these freaking big radiators.


so it is cold on sensors, but hot in person.

for more info, i recommend this site, it's technically a section on space warfare, but it illustrates the point.

[Qev]

It also depends on whether you're talking about heat or temperature. Interstellar space is very cold, ie. it does not possess heat in any great concentration. However, the temperature of the interstellar medium can be enormous, measured in thousands or millions of Kelvins.

[tundro]

"Ah, Kirk, my old friend, do you know the Klingon proverb that tells us revenge is a dish that is best served cold? It is very cold in space...."

Star Trek II "The Wrath of Khan"

Nuff' said

[tundro]

Marooned in the center of a dead planet (not nearly as cold as space)....buried alive, buried alive.....

[asajosh]

This IS Ceti Alpha V!
I could probably run throught the entire dialogue of ST: II.

Space is cold, plane and simple.

[Zer0 Kay]

So you seriously want to know? It is both. Space is hot with radiation as there is no atmosphere shielding anything. There is also no way to conduct heat. I think the freeze effect is caused by the vacuum.

[tundro]

Khan said it was COLD in space....so it's COLD. Nyah.

[Juankis]

Here is some great info on Outer Space exposure

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=741

[Crazy Lou]

Well, Glitterboy2098, keanpf, and Dead Boy and a lot of what Rallan said put it best. My response was going to be a whole lot like what they said, but by the time I finished reading, I saw they'd done it for me.

I also think that like Zerebus and Spectre said, you need a "both" or "yes" button. I actually didn't vote (sorry) because I think that all are incorrect.

[Rallan]

both.

the background temp of the vacuum is a mere 3 kelvin. this is pretty cold by any standard.

BUT

Vacuum is a horrible heat transfer medium and a great insulator. anything in space will not be able to get rid of it's heat except through radiative methods. so if you were to step outside (ignoring decompresson and lack of air), you start to broil as your own body heat and the heat you gain from the sun's light and radiation build up inside you, but your ability to get rid of heat comes to a screaching near halt.

this is why the most important part of a space suit is the cooling system, not the heater. and why most real spacecraft have these freaking big radiators.


so it is cold on sensors, but hot in person.

for more info, i recommend this site, it's technically a section on space warfare, but it illustrates the point.

Only reason we got all that fancy cooling stuff on our spaceships and spacesuits is because we're mucking around in Earth orbit, where the sun is still close enough to make things uncomfortably hot. We're talking hot enough to get the moon's surface up to 390K during the lunar "day", which is well above boiling point. If it weren't for that dang sun, we wouldn't need fancy-pants ways of radiating the excess heat, because there wouldn't be any. I mean sure, you only cool down by giving off radiant heat in space, but when there's no other heat sources to soak up some rays from, giving off radiant heat cools you down fast.

[Crazy Lou]

I Believe that it would be very cold. There is no atmosphere that holds relative temperature so im guessing that your body temperature would be basically sucked out because the temperature would be diffusing to equal levels. but im guessing since you are smaller than space you get colder rather than it getting warmer.

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but im pretty sure im wrong in the science, but I know its supposed to be cold.

You're forgeting what's said above, which is that there's not enough matter in space to take the kinetic energy from your body like that. A vacuum doesn't have matter, and only matter can take kinetic energy in the way you're thinking.


On another note, now that I think of it, you could look at it from the perspective of "No" instead of "both" or "yes" because really space doesn't really have a temperature, it's just the matter in space. And that matter's temp. is determined mostly by its location in space, not just the fact that it's out there. In other words, temperature is a trait attributed to matter, which is something which space by definition is definately lacking.

[Qev]

I imagine that the 'temperature' of space is considered the temperature of an object in equilibrium with the local background radiation. In interstellar space, that's primarily the cosmic microwave background at around 2.75 Kelvins. In a solar system, stellar radiation comes into play.

Vacuum is a wonderful thermal insulator. Even without the Sun nearby, an astronaut without cooling in his spacesuit is in danger of overheating.