Why explode in space

What matters is to bring something at a high enough temperature so that it can change to a new internal organization that has less energy, the left over energy being dissipated, This can produce EMR and light flame, if you wish, though not necessarily the candle kind. The energy can also heat various parts, turning some materials into gas, and increasing the pressure of gas, so that it expands and makes other things fly apart.

It may also be that the gas is directly produced by the chemical reaction as in the case of gun powder. Radiation can also push things, if there is enough of it. Things flying apart may also be due to pressure of preexisting gas that will push on the bulheads and hull of a vessel that has lost structural integrity. However, given the relative masses of the ship structure and the gas, such an explosion is likely to be slow, unless there is another energy source in play. It is probably so weak without additional energy that it does not even rip apart the vessel, even with low structural integrity.

If you used a powerful laser to cut a ship in two, the parts would probably drift apart slowly, even though it contained some gaseous atmosphere. But if you are really good in physics, there are other ways for destroying a ship. For example, you can used a " tider ". This powerful device left by the old race can create strong variations of the gravity field in the vicinity of the target.

The target is elongated and then ripped to pieces by the tidal effect, without any explosion. No survivors, unless they are tiny. It is the Sci-Fi version of dismemberment, a popular technique some centuries ago. Then I tried to emphasize that by imagining another kind of weapon, for which I invented the name tider.

My intention was definitely not to mislead people into believing that it existed in some novel or movie. I would have given the reference.

I was only trying to avoid a dry presentation. From answers to the question Was the idea of a tidal dislocation weapon ever suggested in SciFi? They do explode though, and I was trying to get examples that do not necessarily require an explosion. But all that is of course mostly fiction and imagination. Form an enormous fireball which keeps on growing indefinitely?

Absolutely not. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Can spaceships really explode in space? Asked 10 years, 4 months ago. Active 4 years, 1 month ago. Viewed 38k times. Improve this question. Rogue Jedi Fire can burn as long as the three things needed to make fire are present: heat, fuel and oxygen.

The fire will exist until it exhausts its supply of any of these three elements. Among these, light would have no problem traveling through vacuum, heat would be carried by the light through radiation, but there should be no sound.

There is going to be lots of debris, and the debris would go straight without any gravity or air resistance to hold them. HorusKul - hydrogen peroxide has been used as a rocket propellant since it will decompose into steam and oxygen so it would still fall with OghmaOsiris's comment — Strangeland. Show 1 more comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Paul D. Waite 30k 20 20 gold badges silver badges bronze badges. Not an "oxygen source" per se , but an oxidizer which is a bigger class.

Thanks for pointing out. Technically, nuclear devices NOT weapons initiate, they don't detonate. But this isn't physics. Are these possible too? Smoke wouldn't behave as it does in atmosphere or gravity, but the byproducts of combustion are still created in space as they are on a planet; in fact you might think more smoke would be created because with such a limited time to burn before the vacuum dissipates the concentrated burning gases and other components, the combustion wouldn't be complete or ideal.

Show 5 more comments. Here is some nuclear testing in space. There are other dangerous effects that the spacesuits protect against, such as cold and radiation, but these do not cause immediate death, and they definitely don't cause explosion. Topics: explosive decompression , spacesuit , vacuum , vacuum exposure. Humans exposed to the vacuum of space don't explode. Usually, the danger is not the explosion itself, but the debris flying from the exploding ship or station in every direction at high speeds.

In another novel, a hyper-advanced ship officially classified as a light cruiser but with enough firepower to take out a conventional fleet is mentioned to be armed to the teeth with nuclear missiles. The author then proceeds to explain that, in space, this really isn't as dangerous as it sounds. With advanced point-defense systems and EM shielding protecting from nuclear radiation and EMP , a ship can be effectively immune to a nuclear barrage, as nuclear explosions without any matter to "feed" on or air to move only have an effective range of a few miles.

In both cases, little is left of the ship after the flash. Most ships that are destroyed in battle simply break apart and continue on their original trajectory, as pieces start to move apart. In Robert A. Heinlein 's Between Planets it is done correctly when Circum-Terra Station was destroyed by a nuclear weapon. The blast was described as a second sun, blazing white, and as an expanding, perfectly geometrical sphere. The story also explicitly states that there would not be a mushroom cloud in the vacuum of space.

Track a 's action-adventure series by Jerry Ahern. In "Revenge of the Master" a neo-Nazi bomb maker plans to explode a bomb on board the Space Shuttle, and gives some thought to how the vacuum will affect the explosion.

In the 's Venus Equilateral tales by George O. Smith, the eponymous Space Station is being threatened by a Space Pirate. Various means of defense are considered including guided torpedoes. However it's pointed out that explosives have little effect in a vacuum as there is no atmosphere to create a pressure wave, shrapnel might not penetrate the hull and even an armor piercing warhead has to hit the fast-moving spaceship in the first place.

Live Action TV. However, when they use nukes, the explosions are at least spherical and without a mushroom cloud. In Firefly , damaged ships such as a derelict freighter blown up by an Alliance cruiser in "Bushwhacked" simply break up, with the broken parts drifting in the trajectory of the ship. There was also no sound of the explosion of break up which was true for most space shots in Firefly There are lots of these in Star Trek after a Standard Starship Scuffle with an enemy vessel.

In Battlestar Galactica , explosions usually die out quickly and fiery explosions which are caused by oxygen in the ships that blow up themselves - the reason why Cylon raiders hardly ever blow up but just disintegrate mostly appear 'smeared' by velocity. While capital-ship shots were generally silent, smaller fighter craft generally had full sound in space.

The creators fully intended for all space battles to be silent, but upon viewing the results, decided it was too unnatural and inserted sound effects. In a nod to original intent, all sound effects in space are still noticeably subdued. Averted in The Expanse. When a ship is nuked, it breaks apart and vanishes in a bright flash and spherical blue explosion. Another nice touch is that ships don't actually explode without the application of explosives, as seen in "Doors and Corners," when Rocinante wins a space battle by Swiss-cheesing their opponent with PDC note Point-Defense Cannons, large-caliber rotary-barrel machine guns similar in form and function to the Phalanx CIWS guns on real-life warships rounds, killing the crew without actually blowing up the ship.

Newspaper Comics. A scientist jumps up in a crowded theater, yelling "Stop the movie! Stop the movie! Explosions don't go 'boom' in a vacuum! Tabletop Games. Though the visual isn't discussed, explosions in GURPS lose about half of their power when in space due to lack of atmosphere.

Video Games. In EVE Online , the explosion effects look pretty much correct according to what is described above. They are slowed down, however, so that the players can savor in the shiny afterglow of the ship they just helped blow up. Nobody's perfect, though: Torpedoes still give a great planar shockwave. So do large structures when they go BOOM. Every time a Drone Silo is blown up, a planar shockwave comes with the explosion, free of charge.

They do get the "Explosion moves on original trajectory at original velocity" bit, at least. Sadly, the same can't be said for the wreck that's left behind, though that's so you don't have to go chasing it down when you want to loot it. The Sound Effects are justified in game by the simple fact that everything you see as a pod pilot is a VR simulation of actual events, piped directly into your head while you are safely curled up inside your pod full of goo.

Apparently early versions of the Pod tech didn't bother with Sound but the lack of it tended to send the already mentally unbalanced capsuleers completely insane. Star Fox games do this as well, with ships mostly breaking apart after being hit or the classic "BOMB" item going in a perfect sphere. Slyly justified in the early PC game Elite.

The manual explained that when a ship or similar explodes in space, as well as the flash it produces a burst of radio waves which, hitting your communicator, make a sound just like an explosion. While Dead Space games gets the workings of gravity and vacuum right most of the time, in the second game there is a curious exception.