What happens if you fart in Space?

When Superman is on a mission to Krypton (or when he's orbiting Earth to pick up stuff from somewhere else), he can fly through space without a space suit. This is because he's super strong and doesn't need any oxygen or pressure regulating gadgets. But sometimes I wonder what happens to his farts up there.

I mean, he is up there for quite some time, usually. And  it's pretty cold in space. So, the question is: what happens if he has to cut one loose on one of his space missions? Will it become solid and then stick to his cape? Farts are gassy, after all. And in school we were told that gas becomes liquid when it's cold enough.

I found out that human farts consist of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, methane and of hydrogen sulfide. The sulfide is what makes them smelly. But the other gasses are mostly there because of your digestion. Check out some interesting facts on farts on Brenna Lorenz' Blog here. As it turns out, Superman's farts are a bit of a mystery, so I just assumed that they are human.

I did some research on temperatures in space and it seems that space is pretty unpredictable. NASA says that temperatures in space are always around absolute Zero (-270 degrees Celsius). This is because space is a vacuum. But there is some back radiation that makes bodies a bit warmer or colder, depending on the sun (you can check out some rather complicated NASA stuff here). So what they're saying is that, if you're in the shadow of a planet, you could freeze to death at -180 degrees. If you're in the sun, you could happily burn at 115 plus. (I had to ask one of my teachers to explain the NASA stuff to me a little. Check out this website at Universe Today for an explanation of space temperatures that is a bit easier to understand.)

Anyway. For Superman this means that it pretty much depends on where he's flying and when. If he's got the sun in his face, farting might not be a good idea. Hydrogen sulfide is highly flammable, so he might burn his trousers off. If he's flying close to the Ozone layer, he might leave an explosive condensation trail because nitrogen reacts with ozone. And then everyone would mistake him for a plane.

But it turns out that some of his fart gas could actually end up in his cape. If Superman is flying at night and in the shadow of a planet, liquid nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and methane can get stuck in his costume. Nitrogen turns into a solid state at around - 196 degrees, Methane at -161 and hydrogen sulfide at -82.

It's good to know that no one will ever see Superman with a wet cape from farting though because most of the nitrogen will be burnt off by the ozone layer on his way back from space. The rest of his skid marks will probably evaporate into our atmosphere on his re-entry.

If you ever wanted to know what happens to normal Astronauts when they fart into their space suits, check out these cool facts on sciencemuseum.org.uk.

   


I found the cool Superman picture on Odin's Ravens Blog.