Space: the final frontier, and for anyone
unfortunate enough to be sucked out an airlock without 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 some type, and now the hull's been breached and
everyone is about two seconds away from becoming human 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 look at 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 lack of 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 your breath 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 breath you would be pitting your own chest muscles
against the strength of space itself, and that's a fight you're going to lose. The oxygen in your lungs will immediately
expand and rupture your lungs, being released into your circulatory system and ripped out
of your chest... along with large parts of your now shredded lung tissues. So instead of holding your breath, you want
to breathe out as completely as possible and make sure your lungs are empty. Don't worry, your brain will continue to remain
conscious for about 15 seconds, and you can survive up to two minutes with little risk
of permanent damage. With no atmospheric pressure squeezing down
on your body, the next thing to happen will be the vaporization of water in your body. In a normal situation water molecules are
constantly being blown off, but by being replaced with air molecules the water remains in equilibrium
with the air. Without any atmosphere though, water will
begin to evaporate throughout your entire body, causing you to start swelling like a
naughty kid inside Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. You'll eventually swell to about twice normal
size, but because human skin is incredibly elastic 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- though we 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 got some bad news for you. Your circulatory system is so robust, that
it's able to keep your blood pressurized even in the vacuum of space, so as you swell up
like a party balloon, you can look forward to retaining full consciousness as the blood
keeps on pumping- at least until the oxygen stored in your blood runs out after fifteen
seconds. Moisture on the exterior of your body though
and in places like your eyes and tongue will immediately 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 yourself alive either. If you are ejected into space in direct line
of a sight of a star, then you can expect to receive an incredibly bad sunburn on whatever
side of your body is facing the star, thanks to unfiltered solar radiation. Depending on how far you are from the star
though you might not receive enough heat to be seriously burnt, but if you went for a
stroll outside the international space station's airlock 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 outside the 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 is a 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 cold they 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 would remain 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 constant check through your immune system. But once that immune system fails, those bacteria
finally have their chance to turn you into a buffet, and they gorge themselves while
rapidly procreating. Think about that next time you buy some probiotic
yogurt- you're just making those bacteria stronger, and they are patiently waiting for
your immune system to slip up so they can eat you from the inside out. In space though the extreme radiation and
temperatures will kill that bacteria before it can consume much of your body, leaving
your corpse perfectly preserved for millions and millions of years. If you are close to a star, you'll mummify
much like an ancient Egyptian, only when aliens find 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 will consume 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!”
