Space...smel??

[spaced]

What do you think space smells of? If an astronaut was able to take his helmet off on them moon, what would he smell??

[jake-the-peg]

Come on think about this!

Your sense of smell detects chemicals in the air so ......

[CT]

It would smell dusty. Like a house no one has been in for donkeys years. Or possibly like cheese.

[Loosehead]

Cheese of course, emantal probably!

[fo3nix]

/serious answer { as jake says, smell is just your nose taking in chemicals in the air, and interpreting them as smell in your brain. space is a vacuum, containing nothing, thus has no smell }

/joking answer { loosehead: I believe popular theory holds that the moon is in fact made of cheddar }

[qapmoc]

Well astronauts who have walked on the surface of the moon and then returned to their spaceship have smelled the dust which comes back into the ship on their boots etc... ''When the astronauts got back in the Lunar Module they smelled a burning smell like gunpowder. It is thought that the Lunar Regolith with its un-oxidized iron, rusted quickly in the rich oxygen atmosphere in the LM.'' This is probably the closest you might come to smelling the moon.

[bigveg]

it would smell of all the liquids and gases being stripped from your body via your eyes, mouth, ears and skin. as space is a vacuum, your body produces a concentration gradient, which means the liquids and gases in your body want to get out as quickly as possible, so as to thin themselves out a bit. reasonably unpleasant.