• Question: Is it hot or cold in space?

    Asked by jaamazing to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 16 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by sams1.
    • Photo: Adam Stevens

      Adam Stevens answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      It’s really cold.

      But actually if you put a ship or satellite into space they tend to get really really hot, especially if they’re not in a low orbit. The spacecraft they sent to the moon had to rotate the whole journey so that one side of the ship didn’t get too warm. So what tends to happen is that spacecraft have to deal with massive changes in temperature (sometimes really fast) when they go between sunlight and shadow.

    • Photo: Karen Masters

      Karen Masters answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      To answer this properly I think I need to explain what temperature actually is….. think about the difference between something which is really hot and something which is really cold. If you zoom in all the way down so you can see the molecules and atoms the real difference is that the ones which are hot are moving around a lot – while those that are cold are very still.

      You might have learned about the different ways heat is transfered – convection (bulk motion of air, like why the curtains above a radiator sometimes move), conduction (which is to do with transfer of heat in materials which are touching each other – or themselves) and radiation (basically light, or similar electromagnetic waves carrying away hear).

      OK, so in space there is nothing…. so there is nothing to be really hot or cold. But there is light. And if light shines on something it can get hot. But if it doesn’t, and that something is in space, it will quickly loose all it’s heat by radiating it away into space.

      So for planets for example – Mercury can be both the hottest and coldest place in the solar system. it’s really near the Sun, so the side pointing at the Sun gets really hot. But it also has basically no atmosphere, so the side pointing away from the Sun gets really really cold.

    • Photo: Nazim Bharmal

      Nazim Bharmal answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      Both! Space is nearly as cold as it can get, at 3K or -270 deg C. (The coldest place I know of on Earth was in Antarctica where they measured -80 deg C.)

      But if the sun shines on you in space, it can get really hot too. The space shuttle used to have to change its position when the doors along its ‘spine’ were open to stop it getting too hot on the inside. It was designed with radiators that gave out heat, like those at home, but to cool the shuttle down.

      Plus in stars and lots of other places like between galaxies, scientists can say the temperature of gases can be very high: millions of degrees!

    • Photo: Leila Battison

      Leila Battison answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      Really really really really cold!

      In empty space, the temperature is just three degrees above absolute zero, which is about – 270 degrees celsuis. Absolute zero is the lowest temperature possible, and it’s when all the atoms and molecules don’t have enough energy to jiggle around and are completely still. So just 3 degrees above this, they’re still pretty slow!

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