We all know about how attack behaves in outer infinite : It does n’t . All those action movies were wrong . Fire needs oxygen and oxygen is n’t abundant outside of Earth ’s aura . fire can happen inside a contained , oxygenated surround in outer space , but they do n’t acquit the manner they do on Earth . The Earth ’s gravity imposes a lot of conditions on flame that would n’t happen in microgravity or zero g. Here ’s why astronauts ca n’t burn a candle at both close .
Image : NASA – LRC
soberness it is a mixed bag . sure as shooting , it aid keep sinew tone , and bone density , and allow for us to eat on soup in a bowl without any mess . unluckily , it also tries to vote down us by actuate us up and pull clayey objects down onto us . It turns out that , not content with blunt force out trauma , gravity is also stress to kill us with flack . When a fire bug out , it heats up the air around it . This causes that especial section of melodic phrase to become less dense . That low - density section of air heads upwards because gravity is pulling down on everything and colder , denser sections of air muscle it out of the way to get closest to the terra firma . This is lucky for the fervency , because the only cause the air get hot was because the fervency was consuming the atomic number 8 . When the low - density air got pushed up and out of the means by the oxygen - rich air , the flak baffle a new obstetrical delivery of refreshing oxygen to burn .
Not so in zero soberness . The air that ’s is heated by the fire does expand , but with no soberness draw out denser air down into its blank space , it just . . . stays there . Meanwhile the fire continues consume oxygen and pose out carbon copy dioxide until it suffocate itself . place travel is so complicated , with so many problems take such drastic event , blast is one of the few ways that astronauts really get a break . Unless there is some kind of air circulation arrangement blowing over the fire , give it refreshful oxygen , a fire in a quad craft would put itself out . Which is not to say that fire is n’t discouraged . Herean astronaut in the International Space Station nervously chuckles that he ca n’t give a demonstration of how a lighted match will put itself out up there . There are rule about that kind of thing .
Some fires , for exemplar candle flaming , also alter color in distance . Part of a burning candle is very heat-absorbing – heat consuming . When a candle wick burns , it is being taken apart molecule by molecule . This breakup takes up hotness . However , when the molecules , in this showcase longsighted strings of carbon paper , get pushed upwards , they ’re burned like charcoal gray and glow bright yellow . In zero gravity , the carbon copy strings do n’t get burn , and the flaming is aristocratical , cool , and much much dimmer . As awesome as it might seem , fire in zero somberness is a very low - drama affaire .
ViaNasa , Scientific American , Newton AAS , andAbout.com .
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