Some asteroids are big enough to cause damage to Earth whilst others are as tiny as pebbles and burn up as they enter our atmosphere. So to protect astronauts, NASA has developed elaborate space suits.Asteroids are rocks or chunks of rock orbiting the Sun at speeds ranging from hundreds of miles per hour to tens of thousands of miles per hour. The movie "Mission to Mars" has a scene that realistically demonstrates what would happen if an astronaut's space suit were to rapidly lose pressure and be exposed to outer space. You would die quickly because of the first three things listed, probably in less than one minute. You could be hit by small particles of dust or rock that move at high speeds ( micrometeoroids) or orbiting debris from satellites or spacecraft.You would be exposed to various types of radiation ( cosmic rays) or charged particles emitted from the sun ( solar wind).You would face extreme changes in temperature: sunlight - 248 degrees Fahrenheit or 120 degrees Celsius shade - minus 148 degrees Fahrenheit or minus 100 degrees Celsius.However, they would not "explode" as depicted in some science fiction movies, such as "Total Recall." Your tissues ( skin, heart, other internal organs) would expand because of the boiling fluids.So, it was possible for astronaut David Bowman in "2001: A Space Odyssey" to survive when he ejected from the space pod into the airlock without a space helmet and repressurized the airlock within 30 seconds. This process could take from 30 seconds to 1 minute. Because there is no air pressure to keep your blood and body fluids in a liquid state, the fluids would "boil." Because the "boiling process" would cause them to lose heat energy rapidly, the fluids would freeze before they were evaporated totally (There is a cool display in San Francisco's science museum, The Exploratorium, that demonstrates this principle!). This could occur in as little as 15 seconds.
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