PHOTO: SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, GETTY X3 ILLUSTRATION: DANIEL BRIGHT
- YOU WON’T EXPLODE
Even without a spacesuit, your skin can
resist a pressure difference of one
atmosphere, so you won’t explode. Don’t
hold your breath though, because without
the atmosphere pushing against your chest,
the air trapped in your lungs will expand and
rupture the tissues inside, forcing air into
your chest cavity and blood, like the worst
case of the bends. - YOU WILL ASPHYXIATE
Since you aren’t holding your breath, you
have 15 seconds before you lose
consciousness, or as few as five seconds if
you are panicking. If you are rescued and
restored to normal atmospheric pressure
within 90 seconds, you have a good chance
of making a recovery. But any longer than
that, your heart will stop and even a
defibrillator won’t save you. - YOU’LL FREEZE DRY
In the vacuum of space, water will boil
even at body temperature, so the moisture
in your lungs, mouth and eyes will boil
away a few minutes after you die,
eventually drying you out like a mummy.
And with no ozone layer to shield you
from the Sun’s UV radiation, your
desiccated corpse will char black over the
next few months.
What will happen if I am jettisoned into space?
THE THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
What is the speed
of gravity?
According to Einstein’s General Relativity,
gravity travels at the speed of light. Proving it
is far from simple, though: unlike light, gravity
can’t simply be switched on and off, and is
also extremely weak. Over the years, various
attempts have been made to measure the
speed using studies of astronomical
phenomena, such as the time delay of light as
it passes through the huge gravitational field
of Jupiter. While the results have been broadly
in line with Einstein’s prediction, they’ve
lacked the precision needed for compelling
evidence. That’s now been provided by the
celebrated detection of gravitational waves.
Analysis of the signals picked up by the two
giant LIGO instruments in the US has
confirmed that gravity does indeed travel
through space at the speed of light. RMGravitational waves, as
visualised in this artwork,
helped us prove that gravity
travels at the speed of light