Hollywood has taught us many things about space. Detonations happen in slow motion and are accompanied by dramatic sound effects, despite the fact that sound cannot travel in a vacuum. Every crisis can be resolved by one incredibly attractive astronaut making a heroic sacrifice in the final act. And if you are ever unfortunate enough to find yourself in space without a spacesuit, you will explode.
Dramatically. Instantly. In a way that is visually spectacular and mercifully quick. It is, on reflection, almost comforting. The reality, as a viral animation from YouTube scientists DG Eye has just reminded us, is much less cinematic and way, way more horrifying. You do not explode. What actually happens is worse.
Movies have certainly told their fair share of scientific fibs, but one persists above all
NASA / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
What actually happens to your body if your space suit comes off is something very different than what you might think
The moment your suit comes off, your body begins to react immediately, and not in the way you would expect. In the first few seconds, the gases inside your body begin to expand rapidly due to the absence of atmospheric pressure (kind of sounds like an excuse your boyfriend would use for his toots).
The air in your lungs, with nowhere to go and nothing to push back against, causes your lung tissue to rupture. Within five seconds, the moisture on the surfaces of your eyes, skin, and mouth begins to evaporate into the vacuum. The water in your blood starts to boil due to the dramatic drop in pressure, which lowers its boiling point to a temperature your body can reach. Yes, you boil your own blood.
The gases in your body start to expand, and your blood will boil inside your body
Your body begins to enlarge as fluids and gases expand beneath your skin. But here is the part that will really get you. Your skin, being elastic and surprisingly strong, does not burst. It simply stretches. You do not explode. You swell. Which is, somehow, worse to think about. For a mental picture, you become Stretch Armstrong plugged into a garden hose.
At this point you have approximately 15 seconds of usable brain activity remaining. The oxygen still circulating in your blood is keeping you conscious, barely, but it is running out fast. After those 15 seconds, you black out. You are not a goner yet, but you are no longer aware of anything that is happening to your body, which is frankly the one mercy in this entire scenario.
Carl Wang / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Your oxygen supply will only last you about 15 seconds before you will lose consciousness
From there, your heart slows. Your brain shuts down. Your vital systems fail in sequence, one after another, with nothing to sustain them in the cold, pressureless void of space. Ninety seconds after initial exposure, you are gone from asphyxiation, the simple absence of oxygen to breathe. The whole process, from suit-off to lights-out, takes a minute and a half. In space terms, that is nothing. In human terms, it is everything.
Experts say that you won’t freeze either, as you won’t be able to ‘feel’ cold in the traditional sense in the absence of air
The explosion myth is one of cinema’s most persistent and beloved scientific inaccuracies, and it is not hard to see why filmmakers reach for it. An instant, dramatic detonation is visually arresting, emotionally efficient, and requires no explanation. The scientific truth is much harder to convey without getting slapped with an R rating.
NASA / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Neil DeGrasse Tyson also explained that you won’t freeze either. He said on a Joe Rogan interview that there is “nothing making you cold,” so you would only get cold as fast as you can radiate away heat.
Science fiction has been bending the rules of space physics since the genre existed, and the exploding human body is one of its most cherished conventions. We are happy to have ruined one more movie trope for everyone; you are welcome!
Don’t believe us? Check out this horror show for yourself
People in the comments agreed that this was a visual they could have lived without
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