What is the temperature in space? Does it feel cold?
Does the low temperature have implications for heating of spacecrafts or dressing up for spacewalks?
Tags: cold, feel, Space, temperature
This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 at 6:02 am and is filed under Spacewalks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 28th, 2010 at 6:52 am
It’s cold in the shade, but hot in the sun.
(Really cold, like minus 100 degrees C. Really hot, like plus 120 degrees C.)
That’s why space suits need to be completely self-contained, with their own cooling systems.
April 28th, 2010 at 7:20 am
The temperature of space itself is 2.7 degrees Kelvin, which is -270 degrees Celsius approximately. However, there is nothing out there that can carry heat in the manner we’re familiar with on Earth. An object in Earth orbit can be more than 150 degrees Celsius on the sun ward side and more than 200 degrees below zero Celsius on the shadow side. All because of the radiant heat from the Sun. These extremes of temperature do create problems for design and construction of spacecraft and space suits. Without systems to control the internal temperature, astronauts can freeze to death or get hyperthermia. As part of the life support system, they wear a garment containing tubes filled with a fluid to keep them from getting too cold or too hot. Thermal expansion and contraction of spacecraft can cause them to wobble, a big problem for astronomical, meteorlogical and communications satellites and any other spacecraft that requires precise pointing. More extreme problems could include the propellant tanks freezing up or failure of the entire spacecraft. If a spacecraft that depends on solar panels sops pointing them at the Sun, the batteries will be run down and the extreme cold can cause circuitry to fail permanently. Certain components also will not work when extremely cold also. For this reason, redundant systems, heaters and careful testing in space environment simulation chambers are used to make sure a spacecraft will work properly in space before it’s bolted to the launch vehicle.
April 28th, 2010 at 8:35 am
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