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Let ’s imagine an astronaut suddenly cave in during a spacewalk and conk of cardiac arrest only min later .
Thankfully , this has never happened . While 21 people havedied in space , spacecraft malfunction that killed the entire work party , rather than health military issue that affected only one person , have been to charge . But if a crewmember did conk out and others remain , they would have to do something with the physical structure — or else risk contamination as the eubstance began to decay . One option ? Release it into space .
If an astronaut died on a mission, what would happen to their body if it were released into space?
Out in the inclemency of space , how would a dead body disclose down ? And where could it stop up ?
relate : How long does it take for a consistency to decompose ?
In the low - pressurevacuum of space , any liquidness from the body ’s surface — the skin , eye , sassing , ear and lung — would at once become to gas pedal , Jimmy Wu , chief locomotive engineer at the Translational Research Institute for Space Health at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas , tell Live Science . Blood vas near the Earth’s surface could also snap and bleed , even after death , Wu added .
The remaining weewee in the body would belike freeze , Wu said , due to space ’s low baseline temperature ofminus 454.81 degrees Fahrenheit(minus 270.45 degrees Celsius ) . fluid loss , plus freeze , could make a mummified land , fundamentally bear on the body . " What it might look like is some sort of dehydrated body that ’s now in blank space , " Wu aver .
Any spaceman exposed to space without a spacesuit would meet this fate . What would materialise next would count on if any bacteria were around .
enquiry on theInternational Space Station(ISS ) has shown thatbacteria can survive in spacefor at least three years . If bacterium were still alive on the body , they would begin to digest it . While most of space is extremely cold , space can also be red-hot — temperatures on the surface of the ISS can range from minus 328 F to 392 F ( subtraction 200 ampere-second to 200 C ) . In a hotter scope , decomposition would greatly speed .
Powerful radiation in spacewould also in all probability do a number on the trunk , breaking apart carbon bond paper and cause the skin and muscles to degrade .
After being jettisoned from the space vehicle , the desiccated and decomposing body would go into orbital cavity , follow the direction in which it was pushed out — unless it encountered another target .
With all the space debris and satellites in orbit around Earth , running into one " is actually a hazard " a dead organic structure could confront , Myles Harris , a doctorial scholarly person at the University College London Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction , told Live Science .
To avoid this risk , NASA recommendsgoing further into blank and " leaving planetary arena " before releasing a organic structure . " It ’s a hard object , right ? " Wu said . A collision between a body and a spaceship or satellite could get genuine damage — to both parties .
If the consistency did avoid collision with satellites and distance junk , over time it would tardily be pull toward Earth by the pull ofgravity , peculiarly if the destruction occurred within gloomy Earth orbit , or about 1,200 miles ( 2,000 kilometers ) or less from Earth . Eventually , in what would probably be the most striking part of the stiff ’s journey through place , it would reenter the aura and combust up .
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Releasing a body from a spaceship is n’t the only option after death . Space burial is another possibility , although it comes with the risk of exposure of contaminate terrestrial surfaces . NASAis also developing abody bagthat could preserve remains on a starship for 48 to 72 hour — plenty of clock time to return to Earth from the International Space Station . But if trips were far away , like a Mars military mission with a seven - calendar month flight back to Earth , crews would have to retrieve other option .
As spaceflight speculation further from Earth , NASA is preparing mission death rate procedures . The commercial-grade spaceflight industry should plan for how to manage dying in space too , Wu said .
" Hopefully it never happen , but it might , " Harris say . And if it does , it ’s good to be prepare .
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