What Would Happen To Your Body In Space?

Space: the final frontier, and for anyone
unfortunate enough to be sucked out an airlockwithout a space suit, it will definitely be
the fatal frontier. It’s an old Hollywood trope- humans inside
a flimsy spacecraft have an accident of sometype, and now the hull’s been breached and
everyone is about two seconds away from becominghuman popsicles or having their eyeballs explode. But is that what really happens to you if
you stepped out of a spacecraft unprotected?Hello and welcome to another episode of The
Infographics Show- today we’re taking a lookat what would happen to your body in space. The most obvious problem you’re going to have
if you were sucked out into space is a lackof oxygen- space is a nearly perfect vacuum
meaning there’s not much gas to breathe in,let alone breathable O2. So if you find yourself aboard some space
disaster, then clearly you should hold yourbreath and try to claw your way to safety,
right?Wrong- that would actually be almost instantly
fatal for you. As we mentioned, space is an almost perfect
vacuum, and if you tried to hold your breathyou would be pitting your own chest muscles
against the strength of space itself, andthat’s a fight you’re going to lose. The oxygen in your lungs will immediately
expand and rupture your lungs, being releasedinto your circulatory system and ripped out
of your chest. . . along with large parts ofyour now shredded lung tissues. So instead of holding your breath, you want
to breathe out as completely as possible andmake sure your lungs are empty. Don’t worry, your brain will continue to remain
conscious for about 15 seconds, and you cansurvive up to two minutes with little risk
of permanent damage. With no atmospheric pressure squeezing down
on your body, the next thing to happen willbe the vaporization of water in your body. In a normal situation water molecules are
constantly being blown off, but by being replacedwith air molecules the water remains in equilibrium
with the air. Without any atmosphere though, water will
begin to evaporate throughout your entirebody, causing you to start swelling like a
naughty kid inside Willy Wonka’s chocolatefactory. You’ll eventually swell to about twice normal
size, but because human skin is incrediblyelastic and durable, you won’t burst like
a giant meat balloon. If you get rescued at this point, you’ll actually
return to normal and you should be fine- thoughwe wouldn’t recommend it. If rescue isn’t forthcoming though, then you’re
going to be in incredible amounts of pain-and if you were hoping to instantly blackout
due to a lack of blood pressure, then we gotsome bad news for you. Your circulatory system is so robust, that
it’s able to keep your blood pressurized evenin the vacuum of space, so as you swell up
like a party balloon, you can look forwardto retaining full consciousness as the blood
keeps on pumping- at least until the oxygenstored in your blood runs out after fifteen
seconds. Moisture on the exterior of your body though
and in places like your eyes and tongue willimmediately begin to boil due to the lack
of atmospheric pressure- yet this isn’t a’hot’ type of boiling, but rather a very violent
form of evaporation, so you won’t cook yourselfalive either. If you are ejected into space in direct line
of a sight of a star, then you can expectto receive an incredibly bad sunburn on whatever
side of your body is facing the star, thanksto unfiltered solar radiation. Depending on how far you are from the star
though you might not receive enough heat tobe seriously burnt, but if you went for a
stroll outside the international space station’sairlock with no space suit, you could expect
a severe and very immediate sunburn. You’ll likely also be bombarded by huge amounts
of cosmic radiation, specially if you’re outsidethe protective magnetosphere of a large planet. Our suggestion is to spin rapidly, that way
you’ll be crispy nice and evenly. We all know space is cold, roughly about 2. 7
Kelvin or -270 celsius, or -455 fahrenheit. You’d probably expect that your corpse would
then rapidly freeze without any protection,but actually you could stay relatively warm
for a pretty long amount of time. That’s because your body and skin is a pretty
excellent insulator, and because space isa vacuum there’s nothing to lose heat to via
convection or conduction. Here on earth we’re constantly surrounded
by atmospheric gases, so when it gets coldthey are able to leech heat from our body
and carry it away, making us cold. In space though there’s no medium to lose
heat to, so your core body temperature wouldremain warm for a decent amount of time. Once you’re dead though, well you’re not going
to change much for a long, long, long time. On earth we decompose as we are eaten up by
the bacteria inside of us, billions of tiny,hungry little lifeforms just waiting to eat
you alive that your body keeps in constantcheck through your immune system. But once that immune system fails, those bacteria
finally have their chance to turn you intoa buffet, and they gorge themselves while
rapidly procreating. Think about that next time you buy some probiotic
yogurt- you’re just making those bacteriastronger, and they are patiently waiting for
your immune system to slip up so they caneat you from the inside out. In space though the extreme radiation and
temperatures will kill that bacteria beforeit can consume much of your body, leaving
your corpse perfectly preserved for millionsand millions of years. If you are close to a star, you’ll mummify
much like an ancient Egyptian, only when aliensfind you millions of years later you’ll actually
be in a lot better shape than them. So if you know anyone really vain in your
life, you should recommend they die in space!What other strange places and what they would
do to your body would you like to know about?Should we really be eating probiotic foods
when it’s just making the bacteria that willconsume us all in the end stronger?!Let us know in the comments!Also, be sure to check out our other video
called What Happens When You Die?!Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t
forget to like, share, and subscribe. See you next time!”