this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2026
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I've heard that basically everywhere you go in space you will die by overheating because your body can't radiate away the heat it generates. It's weird to think that you can die from literally being cooked alive in a vacuum with a temperature of 0 degrees (readers choice of units).
Temperature is one of the least intuitive things when really getting into the nitty gritty of it. One of my favorite things to prompt people with is to ask them what makes something twice as hot as something else?
Physics is wild, man.
Rather than reader's choice of units, it has to be Kelvin... 0F or 0C is warm in absolute terms.
AcKsHuLlY it could also be in rankine
I'm being pedantic as fuuuuuck because I've never actually seen it used in real life. For those that don't know, it's similar to Kelvin in that 0 is actually absolute zero, but the degree step sizes are the same as fahrenheit
Rankine is used in chemical engineering calcs because a lot of US chemical plants are built in US Customary units and it's a lot easier to calculate in Rankine and keep everything in that system than try to convert back and forth between K and F.
Thanks for the interesting info! I figured it was used somewhere, just hadn't seen it.
And reminded me of the unit I saw once that I hate the most. Kilofeet... Not kidding. Apparently used in telecommunications as a unit of length for spools of cable, probably for similar reasons of easier math but couldn't fully switch from the US standard.
Sure but all three are colder than body temp
Temperature is the average speed of atoms, in space, what atoms?
Space isn't cold. It just isn't any temperature
Right, so getting to that whole "temperature is a measure of average speed of atoms," what's the average speed of atoms in 100 degrees Celsius boiling water vs 100 degree celsius steam? Or for that matter any solid at any given temperature compared to any gas of the same temperature? See what I mean when I said not intuitive?
Also, even in a vacuum a thermometer will eventually settle on a temperature it'll just take longer to equalise.
Atoms move in a solid, they just vibrate, in a liquid and glass they fly around. Somewhat bonded to each other in a liquid. But the speed is the same for any given temperature.
In vacuum I think a thermometer will just go to absolute zero/boil off.
That is just not true mate. A better working definition for temperature is the average kinetic energy of molecules not average speed of them. Smaller molecules such as hydrogen will move much faster than larger ones such as water at any given temperature. KE = 1/2mv^2
And no a thermometer in a vacuum will settle to the ambient temperature of it's environment. Nothing will settle to absolute zero. Either an object is in a true vacuum (theoretical doesn't actually exist) in which case it will remain its current temperature forever or for objects in the vacuum of space it will equalise with the temperature of it's surrounding environment.