• Question: how cold is it in space

    Asked by Space DUDE! to Rochelle, Julia, Jon F, Beth, Adrian on 18 Jan 2016. This question was also asked by crystalskillz9, Alwyn Anto, viri11, viri17, iaaukadmin.
    • Photo: Rochelle Velho

      Rochelle Velho answered on 18 Jan 2016:

      Space is a very dangerous environment.

      Once you leave the Earths atmosphere it is freezing, precisely -270.45 Celsius. Brr! Very cold!

      This temperature in the space vacuum was produced by the uniform background radiation that was left over after the Big Bang or explosion at the start of the universe. So without this afterglow, it would be even colder!

    • Photo: Jon Farrow

      Jon Farrow answered on 19 Jan 2016:

      The other thing about space (or at least Low Earth Orbit), though, is that it’s also very hot (sometimes)! Heat gets transferred in three ways – conduction (through touching other materials), convection (from the fact that hot air rises), and radiation. In space, the first two don’t apply. So in the dark, there’s basically no radiation so you’re at the background temperature of the universe. When you’re in the sun, there’s no atmosphere to filter any of the light, so you get the full brunt of the sun’s radiation and it can heat things up to +150C.

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