[FONT=Arial]**Something I’ve always wondered about…let’s say I were to suddenly find myself as I am right now (that is wearing a t-shirt and shorts) on the surface of pluto, or Mercury, or Mars, outer space, black hole, etc., with no protective gear. I know I will certainly die, but what happens exactly in a physical sense? Perhaps this has been discussed before or there are links that I can’t find? Thnks!
Well, in vacuum you wouldn’t explode into a bloody mess as indicated by any number of Peter Hyams/Paul Verhoeven films; aside from some fairly superficial subcutaneous and pulmanary capillary hemorraging, your biggest problem would be that you’d freeze to death in short order as the liquids on your skin and in your body would evaporate, sucking away the heat with them. You might survive for tens of seconds–90 seconds seems to be the round-number estimate that appears most often–before losing consciousness and rapidly dry-freezing into a solid corpse. (Nor would this save you for later rescussication; the freezing would cause the water in your body to solidify into crystal shards that would rupture cell boundries, rendering you–literally–into so much pulp.)
On a planet with some atmosphere, other reactions, equally nasty, might occur. On some of the Jovian and Saturnian moons, for instance, you might have the chance to be dissolved by liquified sulphuric acid, or reduced by methane compounds, or even choke to death on Titan’s reducing atmosphere, before you’ve a chance to properly freeze. On Venus you’d be smashed to a pulp before being immolated by superheated acidic steam, and in close orbit to a black hole tidal forces would rip you limb for limb, and indeed, atom for atom, as you spiral in toward the event horizon, dragging you–or the spaghetti strand that is left of you–faster and faster toward the hypersurface but like Zeno’s hare, never quite making it to the finish until the bitter end of time (or until the singularity evaporates).
Sweet dreams…
Stranger
No one would hear you scream.
Well, somebody was going to say it… 
Stranger :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
This is why mankind must leave this cradle called Earth and venture into space. So that we may die in more spectacular, entertaining ways. It’s our destiny.
Now that’s good television.