If I read one more thing about how characters need to be insulated against the cold of space (as in the Void Shrikes' uniform in No Surrender) I'm going to blow a gasket.
Space is not cold, dammit.
Well, It depends on the situation. Without the right gear, given the time, you either freeze or boil to death.
Space is a vacuum, yes, but without any source of energy, you will constantly loose energy (i.e. your body temperature). Insulationor a heater will help there to buy some time and regulate the loss of energy. But if you are close enough to a star to receive energy by radiation you might actually heat up and require a cooling system to not die for you actually have to much energy now.
Edited by FieserMoepThe amount that your body loses due to emitting radiation (the only way it can lose heat without losing mass) is negligible compared to the amount of radiation that one would be exposed to in space. Overheating is a much more relevant problem. Loss of heat requires either emission of energy or contact with something else - the latter is not going to happen in space, it's a vacuum.
Obviously pressure is way more important; your blood boils in vacuum.
Well, if you do not have enough time to heat up or cool down there should not be much impact at all if we talk about a very short time frame though.
A nice Q&A about that topic:
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970603.html
Weren't the temperatures taken by astronauts on the moon killing-hot in direct sunlight, and killing-cold in darkness? I think the game designers decided that it would be too complicated to create rules for this, so they simplified it (space is more 'dark' than 'light' overall) to just one type of temperature hazard in space. My guess.
Right lets get his one nailed down shall we?
Vacuum is an insulator, it has no molecules to agitate in order to radiate the molecular vibrations we experience as heat.
As such the problem with space isn`t that it is cold itself, but that it is a neutral medium for the particles passing through it and any attendant energies (or lack of them) they might possess. The vacuum doesn`t diminish their energy and this poses problems for delicate beings and fragile habitats that usually have a planet`s atmosphere and magnetic field protecting them by diffusing or deflecting these energies.
In short have fun near absolute zero (energy neutral) until you move close enough to a star for it`s highly energetic charged particles cook you because let`s face it, the range of human endurance of temperature is very, very small indeed. An internal change of a few degrees (Centigrade) in either direction can cause death (by hypo/hyper -thermia depending on which.)
Edited by Askil
Vacuum is actually neither cold nor hot. It's nothing.
If anything is cold in space it's the 5 or 6 atoms floating around in the mostly empty void.
With this and the explosive decompression silliness FFG is just going with the effects of being in outer space that most people believe due to Hollywood.
Bogi, cold isn`t a thing. It`s an absence of heat, like darkness is an absence of light.
As such vaccuum or "nothing" (the absence of things) is inherently dark and cold. Ironically it`s also an insulator so it dosen`t take heat away from objects inside it,
But it`s the pressure that`ll be the main problem low pressure causes boiling points to drop and for beings made up mostly of liquid having all your bodily liquids suddenly boil and expand under reduced pressure is a fatally unpleasant experience and thats`s before theyovercome the insuoation of space y expanding out of your body taking your heat with them.
In space, nobody can hear you being freeze dried, while bursting and toasted by solar radiation.
The NASA actually has a very interesting article about this very question up here , with references towards several real life incidents.
But honestly, this is
Warhammer 40,000
- out of all the silly and nonsensical things in the setting, we're picking on
this
?
Bogi, cold isn`t a thing. It`s an absence of heat, like darkness is an absence of light.
Cold, unless I am making a complete physics failure. is the absence of motion in something. Something is cold if its molecules are moving slowly, slowing down chemical reactions and so forth. As heat is rapid molecular motion, breaking molecular bonds down and so forth.
Vacuum is nothing. "It" has no temperature at all. "It" is neither hot nor cold. Just as "it" has no color and no hardness and no anything other than geometrical extent.
If you jumped into outer space, you would not feel cold.
You can't predicate something of something that doesn't exist.
Now the few particles that are invariably present in any real "vacuum" may be very cold, but they are too dispersed to matter.
Edited by bogi_khaosa
But honestly, this is Warhammer 40,000 - out of all the silly and nonsensical things in the setting, we're picking on this ?
Wait, you want to tell me that chain swords/axes/halberds/flails are not a viable weapons in real life?
Wait, you want to tell me that chain swords/axes/halberds/flails are not a viable weapons in real life?
Allowing this doubt in your mind has qualified you for a Visit to the R.I.P. Unit, Soldier!
Phht, I found chainswords to still be one of the easier things to
rationalise
excuse ...
If you all had read the Primer you should know, that holding breath (well, that actually better not^^), turning on your Flashlight (Not the Lasrifle), reciting the Litany of the Vacuum and wobbling with your extremities is all you have to know and do until a SAR Team most certainly will rescue you.
Space is actually rather save (Within half a minute) so no worries, the Primer has an answer for all your gratuitous concerns.
If you die, you obviously weren't faithful enough and are a disgrace to the Emperor!
Radiant heat probably isn't going to make you freeze. While your blood will not boil instantly when exposed to vacuum, the sweat on your skin and water in your mouth will. One case they had of accidently exposure to vacuum resulted in the subject passing out after 14 seconds. His last memory was the water boiling on his tongue... Note that they he didn't actually reach hard vacuum. Having liquids boil off your skin will make you feel cool, but you won't freeze. The oxygen deprivation and expansion of gasses in blood vessels and body cavities will kill you within 1-2 mins. They have never successfully revived animals or humans who have been exposed long enough for their heart to stop.
Here is another answer from NASA about the temp in space
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980301b.html