ChatterBank1 min ago
Implode or explode
5 Answers
If I was floating in space without a spacesuit on would I implode or explode? It was a question that friends and I talked about for ages, and there was the arguments for both sides, I was just wondering what the actual answer is?
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.Depending on how quickly decompression took place, your lungs may expand rapidly enough to break your ribs before the air has had a chance to escape through your mouth.
Your veins and arteries may burst internally as the dissolved gasses in the blood come out of solution - similarly with the vitreous and aqueous humours in your eyeballs.
Similarly, gases trapped in your stomach and intestines could cause interesting effects as they expand in the near-vacuum of space.
You would certainly not implode though. An implosion occurs when the external pressure is greater than the internal pressure of an object / system etc.
This is not the case in space.
Your veins and arteries may burst internally as the dissolved gasses in the blood come out of solution - similarly with the vitreous and aqueous humours in your eyeballs.
Similarly, gases trapped in your stomach and intestines could cause interesting effects as they expand in the near-vacuum of space.
You would certainly not implode though. An implosion occurs when the external pressure is greater than the internal pressure of an object / system etc.
This is not the case in space.
Mibn's link was imaginatively demonstrated in the film '2001- A Space Odessey'. See details here