That remains unchanged in space 5. What happens to a person in space without a spacesuit? Instant death in space without a spacesuit

Wine on the Moon... Whiskey on space station... Reading as a child not the most children's books about space pirates, rangers and other daredevils, I did not even think that drinking in space was not allowed. And indeed, space travel long and difficult relationships with a drink. Traveling thousands of kilometers from Earth into the gray abyss of the unknown is not so easy. Scary. Hard. Why don't astronauts relax at the end of the working day with a drink or two?

Alas, for those who love space and wet their lips with strong drinks, the consumption of alcoholic beverages is prohibited government agencies, which send astronauts, for example, to the International Space Station. But soon we will go to The Last Frontier An ordinary person can do it too - for example, for the colonization of Mars. Obviously, booze should be allowed for such a long and painful one-way trip that will drag on for years? Or at least equipment for making your own alcohol on the planet?

Booze and outer space have a long and complex relationship. Let's see what can happen to an ordinary drinker who is an astronaut, and what can happen if we start sending ordinary drinkers into space.

It is widely believed that at high altitudes you feel dizzy and feel nauseous more quickly. Thus, it would be logical to assume that alcohol in orbit would have very strong effects on the human body. But this is not entirely true.

This myth was debunked back in the 1980s. In 1985, the US Federal Aviation Administration conducted a study that examined the behavior of people who drank alcohol at simulated altitudes while performing complex tasks and taking breathalyzer measurements.

As part of the study, 17 men were asked to drink some vodka at ground level and in a chamber simulating an altitude of 3.7 kilometers. They were then asked to perform a series of tasks, including mental calculations, tracking light on an oscilloscope using a joystick, and others. The researchers concluded that “neither the breathalyzer nor the performance assessment showed any interactive effect of alcohol and altitude.”

So it's a myth that you get drunk faster while flying? Dave Hanson, professor emeritus of sociology at the State University of New York at Potsdam, who has been researching and drinking alcohol for 40 years, thinks so. “I can’t imagine getting drunk in space any other way,” he says.

However, he also thinks that altitude sickness can mimic a hangover and also mimic intoxication. “If people feel inappropriate under pressure, they may also feel this way when they are intoxicated.” Conversely, people who claim to get drunk on airplanes faster than usual may simply be exhibiting a particular behavior. These people exhibit drunken behavior more when they think they are drunk rather than because they actually consumed alcohol.

"If people are on a plane and they think that for some reason alcohol is going to have an unusual effect on them, they will think that it is having an unusual effect on them," Hanson says.

It turns out that if there is no additional effect, you can sip a little strong drink on board the ISS? No you can not.

"Alcohol is prohibited for consumption aboard the International Space Station," says Daniel Huot, a spokesman for the Space Center. Johnson. "The use of alcohol and other volatile components is monitored on the ISS due to the impact their components can have on the station's water recovery system."

For this reason, astronauts on the space station do not even receive products that contain alcohol, such as mouthwash, perfume, and shaving lotions. Spilled beer on board can also pose a serious risk of equipment damage.

There also remains the question of liability. We don't allow drivers or fighter jet pilots to get drunk and drive, so it's no surprise that the same rules apply to astronauts inside a $150 billion space station floating around the Earth at warp speed.

However, in 2007, an independent group created by NASA studied the health of astronauts and concluded that there were at least two astronauts in the agency's history who took a large number of alcohol immediately before the flight, but who were still allowed to fly. A subsequent review by NASA's safety chief found no evidence to substantiate the claims. Astronauts are strictly prohibited from drinking 12 hours before a flight, as they are required to be fully present in mind and body.

The reason for these rules is clear. In the same 1985 FAA study on the effects of alcohol at altitude, scientists concluded that every milligram counts. Regardless of the height at which the subjects drank, the breathalyzer readings were the same. Their performance also suffered equally, but those who took the placebo at altitude performed worse than those who took the placebo at sushi level. This suggests that altitude, independent of alcohol consumption, may have little effect on mental performance. The study concludes that this provides a reason to further limit alcohol consumption at altitude.

There is another reason to avoid foamy drinks like beer - without the help of gravity, liquids and gases accumulate in the astronaut's stomach, leading to unpleasant effects.

However, despite strict regulations, this does not mean that people in space will never come into contact with fermented liquids. There have been many experiments on board the ISS involving alcohol, but not excessive drinking, so no one really knows exactly how the human body will react.

“We are studying all possible processes of change in the bodies of astronauts in space, including at the microbial level,” says Stephanie Schierholz, a NASA spokeswoman. "And we have a very robust nutrition program that ensures astronauts' bodies have everything they need to stay healthy."

As part of the Skylab program, astronauts were given sherry with them, but it performed poorly during flights in microgravity.

And perhaps the most amazing thing is that the first liquid that was drunk on the surface of the Moon was wine. Buzz Aldrin said in an interview that he drank some wine while taking communion before leaving the lunar module in 1969. The ceremony took place during a communications pause, so it was not transmitted to Earth.

And although NASA has long imposed strict restrictions on alcohol consumption in space, Russian cosmonauts in the past could afford to relax. The astronauts aboard the Mir orbital station could afford some cognac and vodka. I wonder how they agreed to fly to the ISS with its prohibition.

In 2015, the Japanese company Suntory sent some of its best whiskey to the space station. This was done as part of an experiment to observe “the manifestation of taste in alcoholic beverages during use in microgravity.” In other words, since booze gains strength differently in microgravity, it will taste better and develop faster.

And a few years ago, from September 2011 to September 2014, NASA conducted an experiment to study the effect of microgravity on whiskey and charred oak wood, which helps the drink in the process. After 1,000 days in space, the tannins in the whiskey remained unchanged - but the space wood chips released higher concentrations of their aroma.

So even though astronauts are prohibited from drinking alcohol, even in space they continue to work on improving the taste of the alcoholic beverages we drink here on Earth. As for the Martian missions, which will last for years, it will definitely not be possible to do without alcohol.

Experts like Hanson, however, see no harm in further limiting alcohol. Besides practical safety considerations, there may be other concerns. Hanson believes that the many sociocultural differences of Earthlings living in a confined space for many years in a row will make drinking much more difficult.

“This is politics. This is culture. But this is not science,” he says. What happens if you find yourself among Muslims, Mormons or teetotalers? Harmonization of cultural perspectives in limited space will be a priority from the very beginning.

Therefore, astronauts who want to cheer up their spirit will have to enjoy the view from the window, and not the view at the bottom of the glass. But we'll leave some champagne for them when they come back.

The fact is that scientists really believe that they know almost everything about space. However, new discoveries are made regularly, surprising ordinary people, and sometimes taking astrophysicists by surprise. For your attention – 10 incredible facts about space that amazes the imagination and forces you to reconsider your worldview!

10. Water pools in space

A giant cloud of steam caught in a gravitational pull black hole in the depths of the Universe

In 2011, astronomers accidentally discovered a giant cloud of vapor caught in the gravitational pull of a black hole in the depths of the Universe. Thus, they found the largest volume of water in history. The clouds, called "reservoirs" by astronomers, hold 140 trillion times more liquid than is contained in all of our planet's oceans combined.

It turned out that these clouds are not much younger than the Universe itself, and this interested scientists even more. Thus, Matt Bradford from NASA stated that this discovery is another proof fact that water existed in the Universe even at the most early stages its existence.

So if we ever escape from Earth, or if water supplies run out, we will know where to find it. All that remains is to build a giant intergalactic pump. But the main problem is not even this: the gigantic water cloud is located at a distance of 10 billion light years from our planet.

9. It will take you 225 million years to travel a light year

The length of a light year is about 9.5 trillion kilometers

To cover the distance that light travels in 1 year, a person needs to walk without stopping for more than 200 million years! The length of the path will be about 9.5 trillion kilometers. In other words, if you had started walking right before dinosaurs appeared on Earth, you would have reached the finish line approximately now.

Jessica Cheng, editor of Popular Science magazine, believes such a trip would cause an unprecedented number of problems. First, you would need almost 12 billion pairs of shoes. Secondly, you would burn 45 calories for every kilometer you walked, so you would need an unlimited amount of food to replenish your energy.

Cheng also says that in 225 million years you wouldn't be as far along as you might think. In astronomical terms, 1 light year is a tiny distance. At the end of your journey, you would still be much closer to the Sun than to any other star. The fact is that the distance to the closest star to us, Proxima Centauri, is 4.22 light years. That is, it would take almost 1 billion years to get there!

8. Eros - the asteroid of wealth

Eros is a cosmic treasury containing untold riches

In 1998, one of the spacecraft examined the asteroid Eros that approached Earth and transmitted data to scientists. The latter, after analyzing the information received, were able to make a loud statement. It turned out that Eros is a cosmic treasury containing untold riches. After analyzing the size of the asteroid, NASA suggested that if, like other asteroids, it consists of 3% metal, then it contains about 1.8 billion tons of gold deposits and other precious materials, such as platinum.

According to Dr David Whitehouse, BBC science editor, Eros is indeed a large cosmic body, but not the largest. Dozens of more massive asteroids are known. Whitehouse also took into account the volume of deposits precious metals in the depths of Eros and calculated that the total value of this cosmic body reaches approximately 20 trillion dollars. This is more than the annual GDP of the United States of America. Unfortunately (and at the same time, fortunately), people are not destined to profit from these riches in the near future. We have not yet learned how to stop asteroids or extract minerals from them directly in space. Therefore, the only option for “appropriating” the gold and platinum of Eros involves his fall to Earth. But in such a scenario, no one would have been able to get rich: the collision would have been fatal for all of humanity.

7. Scientists know of 1,397 asteroids capable of destroying life on Earth

The trajectory of 1397 potentially dangerous space bodies has been calculated for many years to come

In an attempt to prevent dramatic scenes like Armageddon, NASA is monitoring 1,397 cosmic bodies in our planet. solar system. A collision with them would lead to the end of human civilization. You can rest assured: any body with a diameter of more than 100 meters, approaching the Earth less than 8 million kilometers, will be detected in time by specialists from NASA.

Scientists model their orbits on computers and thanks to this they can predict where a particular asteroid will be at a certain point in time. The trajectory of 1397 potentially dangerous cosmic bodies has been calculated for many years to come. However, the threat of a collision with one of them in the foreseeable future remains quite high.

6. The ISS moves in Earth’s orbit at a speed of 8 km/s

The International Space Station orbits our planet at speeds far exceeding the fastest aircraft.

According to NASA, the International Space Station orbits our planet at speeds far faster than the fastest aircraft. It reaches approximately 29 thousand kilometers per hour (8 kilometers per second). This allows the ISS crew to see the sun rise every 92 minutes! By the way, there are websites where you can see the space station in action and track its location in real time.

5. There are more stars in space than words ever spoken by people.

No one knows and will never know the real number of stars

According to the publishers of Scientific American magazine, there are many more stars in the Universe than words ever spoken by all people who have lived on Earth. This number is so huge that it is beyond human understanding. For example, Nicola Willett Mars believes that there are at least 70000000000000000000000 (70 sextillion) stars in the Universe. He proceeded from the assumption that there are more than 100 billion galaxies in space, each of which contains billions of stars. That is, the calculated number is nothing more than the result of a theoretical calculation.

The only thing we can say is that it is possible to judge the number of stars in the Universe only with a very large degree of error. No one knows and will never know the real figure.

4. The moon suffers from moonquakes

Seismometers placed on the landing sites of the Apollo missions from 1969 to 1972 transmit a lot of useful information

When Clive Neal, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Notre Dame, and his team of 15 scientists analyzed data from sensors installed on the Moon, he came to a surprising conclusion: our satellite is seismically active.

Seismometers placed on the landing sites of the Apollo missions from 1969 to 1972 transmit a lot of useful information to Earth. So, thanks to it, scientists were able to determine that there are at least 4 types of moonquakes:

Deep moonquakes, the epicenter of which is at a depth of about 700 kilometers. Most likely, this is how the Earth’s gravity affects our satellite. Minor moonquakes caused by meteorite impacts. Thermal moonquakes. Their cause is the expansion and contraction of the surface layer of soil when heated by the sun's rays to +100°C and above and its subsequent cooling. It is known that the “night” in some areas of the Moon lasts as long as 2 weeks, and during this time the earth manages to cool down to -120°C. Small moonquakes. They most often occur at a depth of 20-30 kilometers from the surface of the Moon.

In fact, no one can say, without the risk of making a mistake, what exactly causes moonquakes. Their only known difference from earthly ones is that they last much longer. The fact is that the crust on the Moon is not so compressed by gravity, therefore, during moonquakes, the surface of our satellite vibrates, gradually fading, for a very long time, like a tuning fork. On Earth there is water and minerals that quickly dampen the energy of vibrations. Amazingly, during moonquakes, tremors are felt for up to 10 minutes!

Blue planet- a huge gas giant whose orbit is very close range to the star

By using Hubble telescope Scientists were able to discover an azure-blue planet in deep space. She got the name HD189733b. This planet is a huge gas giant whose orbit passes at a very close distance to the star. The conditions there are truly hellish: wind speeds in the atmosphere reach 7,000 kilometers per hour. And the estimated surface temperature of this “beast” is about 1000 degrees Celsius!

The planet may appear calm and Earth-like in appearance, but in reality its bluish hue comes not from the placid tropical ocean, but from silicate particles that scatter blue light. If humanity could travel between the stars, the conditions on HD189733b would seem to us perhaps the most aggressive and unsuitable for life. Unfortunately, we are not yet able to send at least a satellite to this planet - it is located at a distance of 63 light years from Earth.

2. Earth Has More Than One Moon

There are a number of “near-Earth” type asteroids that follow our planet as it rotates around the Sun

To the question “How many satellites does our planet have?” Most people will answer without hesitation: “One.” But this is only partly true. While the moon is truly the only one celestial body, moving in a strict orbit around the Earth, there are a number of “near-Earth” type asteroids that follow our planet as it rotates around the Sun. They are called "co-orbitals". At least 6 co-orbitals are known to be trapped in the Earth's gravitational field. But don't try to look into the night sky to see them: these cosmic bodies cannot be seen with the naked eye.

Of course, one can agree with many astronomers who assume that these co-orbitals are not satellites in the traditional sense of the word. However, they have significant differences from other asteroids. Like Earth, they orbit the Sun in about 1 year, and sometimes even come close enough to our planet to exert little gravitational influence. That is, they can still be considered our satellites with great reservations.

Robert Jedick, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii, says that at any given time there are 1 or 2 asteroids with a diameter of more than 1 meter orbiting near the Earth. Maybe we should still reconsider our worldview and recognize that our planet has not one Moon, but several. Moreover, some of them come closer to us and move away at different times of the year!

1. There are less than 9 planets in our solar system

The International Astronomical Union decided to name the criteria by which one could judge whether a particular cosmic body is a planet

Forget what you were told in astronomy class at school. In fact, in our solar system there are not 9 planets, but only 8. Several years ago, the International Astronomical Union decided to name the criteria by which one could judge whether a particular cosmic body is a planet:

Such an object must have a fairly large mass and a round shape (but not necessarily perfectly spherical). There should be no other planets nearby. The body must rotate around the Sun in a constant orbit.

The first space object to be demoted from an honorary title and renamed a “small planet” was Pluto. This happened in 2006. Note that the debate over whether Pluto can be called a planet has not subsided for many years in a row. After all, it is, in fact, a huge ice rock, not much different from asteroids. Thus, there are 8 “official” planets left in our solar system.

The depths of space hide countless secrets, many of which humanity has yet to unravel. Without a doubt, amazing discoveries await us ahead, which will turn modern ideas about the Universe upside down and bring us a little closer to understanding the secrets of the universe.

The tension in relations between the United States and Russia has also affected outer space

4 October two American astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut returned to Earth, completing a 6-month mission to the ISS. The situation appears slightly tense between Washington and Moscow, threatening to develop into problems of cooperation.

Cosmonauts Andrew Feustel, Richard Arnold and Oleg Artemyev landed southeast of the city of Zhezkazgan (Kazakhstan). Russian and American officials have arrived for the landing, investigating the appearance of a mysterious hole on a Russian spacecraft docked at the orbital station. The hole, discovered in August, led to an air leak on the ISS, but was quickly sealed.

This week, the head of the Russian space agency, Dmitry Rogozin, said that the hole was made deliberately and was not a manufacturing defect. He also hinted at problems of cooperation between Roscosmos and NASA caused by American sanctions in connection with the situation in Ukraine in 2014.

Crew commander Feustel said ISS members were confused by suggestions of deliberate sabotage. NASA is also abandoning the idea of deliberately drilling into the ship. Astronauts plan to perform a space walk in November to collect more data about the hole.

The ISS is one of the few areas of close Russian-American cooperation that has remained stable despite Washington's sanctions and political differences. The cosmonauts said goodbye to the remaining crew members: Alexander Gerst, Serina Aunien-Chancellor and Sergei Prokopyev. The next launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome to the station is scheduled for October 11.

Happy Landing

The crew smiles upon returning to Earth. Artemyev came out first and said that he would definitely eat a fruit and vegetable salad first. Fustel and Arnold also felt cheerful.

The journey proved especially important for Arnold, who spent 197 days of his life at the station. Moreover, Arnold was giving lessons that were intended to be taught by Christa McAulliffe (female astronaut), one of the 7 crew members who died in a fire in the Challenger space shuttle accident in 1986.

It's no secret that space travel is the future of humanity, but we all are closer to the romance of distant worlds than the unsightly reality associated with the fact that anyone who goes on a mission awaits on the ship. Surely you've all heard about the Apollo 11 shuttle and Neil Armstrong, the first man to land on the moon, but few people know exactly how he went to the toilet during the legendary 3-day flight.

In fact, space and orbital stations are not such an elevated space as we are used to thinking about them. From the ever-present sweat to the horribly uncomfortable toilet fixtures, the human body faces many unpleasant challenges in space. If we want to get to Mars, we'll have to figure out how to deal with a lot of inconvenience.

Are you ready to open your eyes to the ugly truth about spaceflight? If yes, then ahead of you awaits a list of 25 disgusting facts about the life of astronauts outside earth's atmosphere.

25. Bacteria

You may think that space stations or spaceships should certainly be very clean, but this is far from the case. It's just as dirty as your home if you don't clean it for weeks. Scientists have found that approximately 4 thousand species of bacteria and microbes live in space along with expedition participants on a permanent basis.

24. Space sickness

Photo: WikipediaCommons.com

Considering how much energy is required to launch astronauts into orbit, and not forgetting that people there find themselves in microgravity conditions, it is not surprising that crew members experience enormous stress during flight. This is why astronauts constantly suffer from the so-called space adaptation syndrome. Symptoms of this disease usually include diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and dizziness.

23. Slime

Photo: Pixabay.com

On Earth, mucus leaves our body through the nose or migrates down the throat, and most often you don’t even notice it. However, in space, microgravity does not allow this entire process to occur according to the usual pattern, and all secretions simply accumulate in the places where they are produced. The only way to get rid of mucus on board the orbital station is to blow the snot into a handkerchief. However, astronauts often resort to very hot spices to make their life easier.

22. Brains

Photo: WikipediaCommons.com

As you have already noticed, microgravity is associated with a number of very unpleasant phenomena. When a person goes into space, he circulatory system begins to work differently, not like on Earth. Instead of our heart pumping blood to our legs, it begins to supply blood to a greater extent specifically top part body and head. For about the first 4 days in space, astronauts' faces literally become swollen due to all the blood rushing to the brain instead of supplying nutrients and oxygen to our limbs. Fortunately, the body subsequently adapts to the new conditions, and healthy blood circulation is eventually restored.

21. Spices

Photo: Tbuckley89

In microgravity, you wouldn't be able to salt or pepper your food the way you normally would. Just imagine particles of ground pepper and crystals of salt floating throughout the ship... That is why all the necessary seasonings for the orbital station are supplied strictly in liquid form.

20. Dead skin

Photo: Rjelves

On Earth, dead skin falls in small particles directly onto the floor, and is constantly blown away by air currents or washed away with water. On spaceships, as you already remember, there is microgravity, and therefore nothing there can ever just fall and lie in its place, waiting for cleaning or wind. As a result, astronauts often encounter clouds of dead skin when one of their comrades changes clothes.

19. Sludge from tubes

Photo: WikipediaCommons.com

In the early days of space travel, a tasty and pleasing diet was not high on the list of space agencies' top priorities. As a result, at first the cosmonauts had an appetite big problems, because they had to literally choke on strange mixtures from tubes.

18. The smell of space

Photo: WikipediaCommons.com

Have you ever tried to imagine what space smells like? When astronauts return to the station after spacewalks and take off their spacesuits, they smell unusual odors. Most often these aromas are compared to undercooked steak, hot iron or even sulfur. In other words, space stinks rather than smells.

17. Smells on the space station

Photo: WikipediaCommons.com

If you're confused by the description of the smell of outer space, prepare yourself for something worse - the aromas found inside space stations. It is not surprising that the smell there is far from the best, because on board there are always very different people, and in this case you won’t open the window. Crew members naturally breathe and sweat constantly, partly due to their daily two-hour training sessions, so NASA even installed special deodorizing devices on board the station. However, the famous astronaut Scotty Kelly once said that the ISS still smells like a prison...

16. Special panties with increased absorbency “Maximum Absorbency Garment”

Photo: Headlock0225

Underwear called “Maximum Absorbency Garment” sounds very serious, but in fact it is just special diapers for astronauts. During the launch of the shuttle and on the way to the ISS, the crew members physically do not have the opportunity to simply take off their spacesuit and run into the space at any time, so these panties come to their rescue. The first to use this American diaper for its intended purpose was astronaut Alan Shepard.

15. Uncontrolled urination

Photo: WikipediaCommons.com

In microgravity, the nerves that tell you when it's time to urinate work very differently than they do on Earth. The thing is that the fluid in the bladder on the ISS is filled according to different laws, and it does not always fill it from bottom to top. The bladder just gradually fills up to its limit, and then suddenly you realize that it's too late to run to the toilet.

14. Drinking water from your own urine

Photo: NASA.gov

There's not a lot of water in space. To solve the problem of water supply on board the ISS, astronauts began to drink recycled and purified water, produced, among other things, from their urine. The device, which converts all kinds of liquids and urine into drinkable water, costs about $250 million! Surely this device is being properly monitored, because none of the participants in the flight would want something to go wrong...

13. Bloating

Photo: Pixabay.com

During the digestion of food, gases are formed in the body. Under the usual conditions of the earth’s atmosphere, these gases easily find a way to leave the body, but in space they remain inside the body for a long time. If you try to fart on purpose, this may cause vomiting. They say that astronauts came up with a special technique for how to properly release gases on board spacecraft.

12. Constipation

Photo: James Heilman, MD

We already know that microgravity causes astronauts to swell and have bloated bellies. However, this is not the worst thing that can happen. For example, there can be constipation in space. Now it’s clear why, during flight missions, astronauts feed mainly on semi-liquid liquid from tubes...

11. Vomiting in space

Photo: Dirk Schoellner / NASA Blueshift / flickr

As we have already said, crew members regularly experience space sickness, which sometimes leads to vomiting. Imagine being in microgravity and feeling sick. Vomit will fly all over the ship! Typically, astronauts try to use vomit bags, which are then stored on the station until the arrival of a new shuttle.

10. Defecation in space

Photo: WikipediaCommons.com

Life on spaceships is a very interesting topic. During the first flights, relieving oneself was an extremely uncomfortable process, and the astronauts had to use special bags. Fortunately, a lot has changed since then better side. Nowadays, expedition participants can already sit on an almost ordinary toilet, but first they take a whole separate course to learn how to do this as efficiently as possible. correct posture, otherwise the fecal matter will end up in the wrong place.

9. Diarrhea

Photo: WikipediaCommons.com

On the Apollo 8 spacecraft, which went to the Moon under the leadership of Frank Borman, everything went wrong almost at the very beginning of the mission. At some point, Borman woke up from an upset stomach - he had terrible diarrhea and was vomiting. Vomit and diarrhea scattered throughout the cramped capsule, causing a lot of inconvenience to the crew members. Captain Borman did not want to report the incident to Earth, but his colleagues Jim Lovell and William Anders forced their boss to report such an unpleasant incident to the control center.

8. Gut health checks

Photo: Jason7825 / en.wikipedia

There was a time when astronauts on their space missions wore special devices in their abdomen to monitor intestinal motility. All readings from these sensors were recorded and analyzed by specialists on Earth, who made sure that everything was in order with the astronauts.

7. Toilet clogged

Photo: WikipediaCommons.com

At home on Earth, a clogged toilet is a rather unpleasant problem, but in space... In 1981, this is exactly what happened. It happened on board the Space Shuttle Columbia - fecal matter then came from the ventilation system directly into the main cabin of the ship. It seems that participants in the Apollo flight program also periodically encountered excrement floating around the shuttle.

6. Sneezing

Photo: WikipediaCommons.com

While the astronaut is in his spacesuit, he cannot cover his mouth or nose when sneezing. If you do happen to sneeze, it can become a serious problem. For example, the wipers of a helmet can be covered with drool and snot, which will have a detrimental effect on the ability to see what is happening around and navigate in space. You definitely wouldn't want to feel like outer space a blind kitten, believe me. To avoid such complications, astronauts always try to sneeze downwards and not in front of them.

5. Death in space

Photo: Claus Ableiter

For a long time, no one really had a normal plan in the event of the death of one of the expedition members right on board the space station. It is unlikely that astronauts would like to deal with a corpse on the ISS. As a result, NASA, together with the Promessa funeral home, developed the “Body Back” concept. According to the researchers' idea, the body of the deceased is placed in a cover resembling a sleeping bag and attached to the outside spaceship. According to the Americans' plan, the body in the sleeping bag will have to burn to ashes in the Earth's atmosphere when the shuttle enters its upper layers.

4. Bathroom on the ISS

Photo: WikipediaCommons.com

Many people probably know what constant quarrels are like because of queues in the bathroom or toilet in big family. Now imagine the same situation in space, and you will understand that your problems are nothing. The ISS was launched into Earth orbit back in 1998, and since then Russian and American scientists have been constantly working there. During all this time, there were many conflicts on board. For example, Russian cosmonauts love jellied meat, which sometimes causes toilets to become clogged. This angered Western cosmonauts so much that they simply forbade the Russians from using NASA toilets.

3. Beads of sweat

Photo: Minghong

As we have already told you, astronauts are required to exercise 2 hours a day to keep their body in shape and not lose muscle mass. During physical activity, they, of course, sweat. In microgravity conditions, sweat does not drain from the body, as on Earth, but simply sticks to the skin in the form of small round droplets. If you don’t wipe this sweat yourself with a towel, it won’t go away from you for a long time. If you're still not disgusted, know that astronauts collect their own sweat to later use it to produce drinking water.

2. It’s very difficult to wash in space, so showering is extremely rare there.

Photo: WikipediaCommons.com

During expeditions, astronauts usually have a lot of work, and at the same time they do not wash for weeks. In the very first missions, everything even went too far... And if you remember that the astronauts lived in very cramped capsules, then it’s better not to even strain your imagination.

1. Calluses on feet

Photo: Quinn Dombrowski

Remember we talked about dead skin? Something worse can happen. According to the astronauts, in space the tips of their toes become painfully sensitive, and they constantly develop new calluses, which every now and then fall off and then fly around the ISS.

Will the Universe expand forever or will it eventually collapse back into a tiny speck? Published in June, the study finds that, according to basic physics, infinite expansion is impossible. However, new evidence has emerged that an ever-expanding Universe cannot yet be ruled out.

Dark energy and cosmic expansion

Our Universe is permeated with large-scale and invisible force, which seems to counterbalance the force of gravity. Physicists call it dark energy. It is believed that it is she who pushes space outward. But the June paper implies that dark energy changes over time. That is, the Universe will not expand for eternity and is capable of collapsing to the size of the Big Bang point.

Physicists immediately found problems with the theory. They believe that the original theory cannot be true, since it does not explain the existence of the Higgs boson, identified in the Large Hadron Collider. However, the hypothesis may be viable.

How to explain the existence of everything?

String theory (the theory of everything) is considered a mathematically elegant but experimentally unproven basis for unifying Einstein's general theory of relativity with quantum mechanics. String theory suggests that all particles in the Universe are not points, but are represented by vibrating one-dimensional strings. Differences in vibration allow one particle to be seen as a photon and the other as an electron.

However, to remain viable, string theory must include dark energy. Imagine the latter as a ball in a landscape of mountains and valleys. If the ball stands on the top of a mountain, it can remain motionless or roll down at the slightest disturbance, since it is deprived of stability. If it remains unchanged, it is endowed with low energy and located in a stable Universe.

Conservative theorists have long believed that dark energy remains constant and unchanging in the Universe. That is, the ball is frozen between the mountains in the valley and does not roll from the top. However, the June hypothesis suggests that string theory does not take into account the landscape with mountains and valleys above sea level. Rather, it is a slight slope where a ball of dark energy rolls down. As it rolls, the dark energy becomes less and less. It could end up with dark energy pulling the universe back to the point of the Big Bang.

But there is a problem. Scientists have shown that such unstable mountain peaks must exist, because there is the Higgs boson. It was also experimentally possible to confirm that these particles can be located in unstable Universes.

Difficulties with the stability of universes

The original hypothesis faces problems in unstable universes. The revised version points to the possibility of mountain peaks but abandons stable valleys. That is, the ball should begin to roll, and the dark energy should change. But if the hypothesis is wrong, then dark energy will remain constant, we will remain in the valley between the mountains, and the Universe will continue to expand.

Researchers hope that within 10 to 15 years, satellites measuring the expansion of the Universe will help understand the constant or changing nature of the Universe.

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