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Outer Space has a Smell
repapetilto writes "ISS Science Officer Don Pettit reports in his journal that outer space gives off a smell best described as "a rather pleasant sweet metallic sensation." Kind of odd considering smell is supposed to be due to volatilized chemical compounds."
Too bad the vacuum of space will suck that smell right out of your nose.
When I was a teenager I read a lot of short stories. Especially all the sci-fi & horror ones like Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick or Stephen King. I don't recall which one it was but a character had a train set that had a short in it on the tracks. The arcing electricity would give off this same smell. I learned through this short story that this is an incidental way to produce ozone (O3), a greenhouse gas. And that the smell is in fact a low amount of ozone. Perhaps you've detected it at the dentists office or while operating an engine? From the Wikipedia entry: Ozone may be formed from O2 by electrical discharges and by action of high energy electromagnetic radiation. Certain electrical equipment generate significant levels of ozone. This is especially true of devices using high voltages, such as ionic air purifiers, laser printers, photocopiers, and arc welders. Electric motors using brushes can generate ozone from repeated sparking inside the unit. Large motors that use brushes, such as those used by elevators or hydraulic pumps, will generate more ozone than smaller motors. I hope he doesn't write himself off as crazy if he did detect ozone. Or at least investigate where it could have come from. If there's tiny molecules of ozone floating around in orbit of the earth, I'm certain that would be scientifically interesting. Perhaps he should test the properties of these materials when exposed to ozone, do they attract the molecules? Or perhaps he should put the materials in a vacuum here on earth for a bit and then pull them out and see if he detects the same smell?
The human nose can be an extremely strong tool for some individuals, perhaps this is more than just psychosomatic? It would drive me crazy to never investigate this if I were in his shoes. It may seem trivial but sometimes a peculiar notion is what drives scientists make a novel discovery
My work here is dung.
Professor Farnsworth already proved it with the Smell-O-Scope.
Well, thanks to the Internet, I'm now bored with sex.
Don Pettit: The guy from whom Prof Farnsworth stole the plans to the smelloscope.
I am officially gone from
So does this mean the Professor's smelloscope could one day be a reality? Gee, I'd hate to small Uranus.
It is not 'space' one smells, but the gas from materials when exposed to high vacuum.
Professor Hubert Farnsworth: I'm afraid the Smelloscope can't locate Bender. His fragrance is too mild. It's being overwhelmed by local sources.
[Everyone looks at Zoidberg]
Dr. Zoidberg: Hooray! Now I'm the center of attention.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Or is he smelling the result of the space suits and other materials being subjected to solar wind and other particles. I suspect ozone and other metallic oxides might be the result.
I say it's time to build a Futurama-style Smelloscope.
Try a little less Old Spice before putting on the spacesuit...
Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
...the inner space. Now that smells really weird!
It will soon be renamed Urectum.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
The outer rim of Uranus also has a smell. It's described variously as a musky, pungent, zesty enterprise, with a splash of sulfur, that causes dizziness and nausea.
And now... ladies and gentlemen... Carrot Top!!!
It drives the nurses wild on NCC-1701.
maybe astronauts just have pleasant, metallic BO
In Space, Nobody Can Smell Your Fart!
I'd hope our space travelers would have a skosh better grasp of physics. The vacuum of near space is darn good, certainly lower than the vapor pressure of most anything we loft into space. Experience with evacuating radio and TV tubes says you can get up to 500 cm^3 of gas out of every few square inches of metal. I would not be surprised if he's smelling the outgassing of items from our earthly spehere, not the "smell of space".
I blame Astro. .
n/t
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Therefore, by process of elimination the universe must smell like Grape-Aid.
rj
So is his nose gonna fall off or grow to the size of Mt. Rushmore?
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
captain obvious
It may be shocking to some, but some VERY not-so-good-for-you solvents give off strange and oddly pleasing smells.
I clearly remember using trichlorethelene(sp?) as a teenager working on cars and remember the smell being not-so-bad. (Don't ask how we got it.) Automobile coolant is another one. Grease car owners also have the pleasure of french fries smell.
Burning auto brakes is gross though.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I knew it!
http://www.gotfuturama.com/Information/Encyc-21-SmellOScope/
"The Sweet Smell of Space" sounds like something Heinlein would have written.
This space available.
What's the likelihood this smell comes from propellants used by the shuttle and soyuz? Seems to me since his only interaction with this smell is from spacesuits that have only had contact with the "air" around the outside of the ISS.
Smell is caused by chemicals in the air triggering olfactory receptors in our sense organs and causing sense data to be interpreted by the brain as an odor.
If you take away the sense data, the brain is still interpreting something, namely the absence of data. It could be that this odor is simply how the brain handles a null dataset.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
electric trains @ xmas...ozone always takes me back;-)
Perhaps the 'smell' wasnt that of space at all. The description of the 'smell' was one of being metallic, and noticing it while around the airlock.
Could this smell instead be from the materials that are coming in and out of spacecrew cabin. In space there will be more intense radiation and temperature extremes, which will affect the materials in question. Being bombarded by the radiation of outer space, that is normally blocked by the minimum shielding of the crew cabin, might just be enough to 'vaporize' certain chemicals on the suit. Upon coming back into the crew cabin, these newly formed chemical compounds with then be able to disperse in the air where they can be picked up as a 'smell'.
If I pull a rotting corpse out of the river, does it logically follow that the river smells like a rotting corpse?
There is a smell... it smells like a shit.
The begining of the universe started with the phrase "You are about to experience chaos"...
I think you meant implode.
Slightly offtopic, but I've heard that the air filters on ISS only scrub harmful CO2, CO, etc., but plenty of other odors persist, making you almost vomit when you first open the hatch. Of course you get used to it after a bit, but can you imagine being one of those tourists who paid $25+ million to spend a week in a fart tank?
He who smelt it, dealt it.
Wanted: witty unique signature. Must be willing to relocate.
but rather space is reacting with the materials the space suits are made of.
Perhaps the effects of unfiltered solar radiation, cosmic rays, etc cause
the suit materials to outgas some odor due to a change in the materials they are
made of.
Darth Vader just farted!
I love the smell of space in the morning. It smells like ... victory.
"Oh my God, it smells like stars!"
"But this one goes to 11!"
space can has a flavur, 2?
Outer Space has a Smell
...I think it was a management joke about engineers.
That's what an old manager of mine would say whenever he walked into our development lab.
...
yes, I am trying to be humorous....
.
P.S. Am I the only one that feels that "dark matter" and "dark energy", which (allegedly) comprise (*)%95 of the universe is a really weak arguement that was created to cover for the fallacies found within the big bang theory? Seriously??
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy
The author of the article describes the "smell" and relates it to certain kinds of welding.
Most of the welding I have done that has a "sweet, metallic smell" has been done with a gas welder. Flux welding stinks something awful! But the gases, depending on what gases are used, can have a very pleasant smell. You have to watch it though 'cause as nice as it might smell, it'll still make you woozie and probably causes dain bramage.
But the smell comes from the oxidation of the metal used in the welder and the super heated gases used to insulate the welding from the atmosphere. Most of the gases used in welding are found in space in very minute amounts but they are there. The Sun is also made up of a portion of various minerals and metals used in welding like iron, carbon, chromium, nickel, oxygen and silicon. If the sun is pumping out all kinds of stuff like that at extreme heat levels, it makes sense that it would cause space to have a "smell" similar to gas welding fumes.
That was the smell of the spacecraft, not the smell of space. It makes perfect sense since the spacecraft is made of metal welded together. This is a stupid article not worthly of Slashdot.
"..scientists from the CDC in Atlanta have been desperately trying to isolate the source of the rapidly mutating virus, and are attempting to round up anyone and everyone that's been in contact with former ISS officer Don Petitt... The virus seems to be unlike any other virus found on Earth. If you have been in contact with Mr. Petitt, any member of his family, or especially his dog Astro, please contact CDC officials immediately..."
What could be making that smell?
E03
While it's intellectually fanciful to believe this is the "smell of outer space", what this guy is smelling is the odor of the compressed air used to re-pressurize the airlock, or more exactly, the smell of the inside of the metalic containers and pumps for the storage of the compressed air which the air picked up when contained under pressure before being introduced into the airlock. Take a whiff of compressed air from an air compressor or air tank... hmm, smells like space (apparently).
Kirk: "How close will we come to the closest Klingon outpost if we continue on our present course."
Chekov: "One parsec sir. Close enough to smell them."
Spock: "That is illogical, ensign. Oders cannot travel through the vacuum of space."
http://www.badmovies.org/tvshows/startrek/tribbles/tribbles1.wav (135 KB)
I didn't fart. Maybe you're smelling the vacuum of space?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
... do you has a flavour?
Sig
They'll be cheering when the first hydroponic garden gets installed at the station, dispersing the metallic tang of recycled air with fresh air processed by plants.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
I'm pretty sure this article ran earlier, right? Something about finding methane on another planet?
They claimed that it suggests biochemical processes are occurring, but I say it just proves the existence of beans elsewhere in the universe. Now they're saying there's a smell? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to deduce that!
Vacuum is vacuum, right? Presumably, this particular odor should also appear on items that have been in a vacuum chamber, shouldn't it? For that matter, the fragments of a broken light bulb or vacuum tube should have the scent....
Why, you might have hit on something there. I'm sure this man, trained as an ASTRONAUT, would have no experience with compressed air, and thus would be completely unfamiliar with its odor.
There's nothing like that "new spacesuit smell"! Too bad it doesn't last forever. Then you have to get one of the cheezy aerosol new-spacesuit-smell sprays. Or a hang a little starfleet symbol air freshener on your helmet's rear-view mirror. The chicks really dig those.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
...it smelled like burnt almond cookies?
The Electric/Plasma Universe
If you hit your head really hard, then close your eyes, you'll see "stars". That doesn't mean there are "stars" inside your eyelids, it means your brain is interpreting stimulus as "stars".
The fact that this guy smells something says absolutely nothing. His brain could be misinterpreting a sensory input as this smell and processing it accordingly.
The Apollo astronauts reported that moondust smells like smells like 'spent gunpowder.' They couldn't help tracking the fine powder back into their lunar modules (especially after tripping and falling while bouncing around the lunar surface). To add to the mystery, the smell disappears after it being exposed to air.
nothing to smell here... move along
The Odor Out of Space!
Klingon programs don't timeshare, they battle for supremacy.
http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=PRLTAO000098000003038101000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes These people seem to think so.
Of course vacuum doesn't have a smell, and it's much more likely that the smell is from the way space suits react to being in vacuum than gasses wafting up from earth getting stuck on them. Or it could be from some of those funky molds that grow on the space station. But that's not really relevant, because he's not writing about physics, he's writing about the experience of being in a space-ship, and smell is one of those things that tie in to emotions and memory.
Other astronauts have made similar comments.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
L'Eau d'Outer Space by Don Pettit..
but they can smell your bad breath.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Not only an astronaut, but the ISS science officer. But I'm sure that a bunch of armchair specialists know way more than he does.
The easiest way is to use a gravitational sink like a planet. But then it will be contaminated.
Anyhow - I wonder why this article was posted - it seems to attract more than the usual share of oddball flies (comments).
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Low earth orbit, such as where the ISS stays, is not "outer" space. Just plain "space", or perhaps "inner space". By definition, "outer" space's boundry begins where a planetary system's gravitational effects are no longer dominant. Earth's "inner space" boundry is approximately halfway to the orbit of Mars, or about 21 million kilometers away.
The guy is one of the 0.001% that actually WORKS IN FREAKING SPACE. He's obviously qualified to do what he does. He wrote an innocuous little blog entry about some funny little thought that crossed his mind in the middle of WORKING IN FREAKING SPACE. It's not scientific, it's not meant to be something you reference in your term paper on "Olfactory Sensations in Vacuum or Near-Vacuum Conditions", it's not being submitted as proof that NASA needs more funding. It just is what it is.
Someone else said this wasn't "worthy" of Slashdot. Maybe that's true but it doesn't make it stupid. It's just one of those millions of things that doesn't require enormous analysis. Blame whoever submitted it and gave it the headline.
"Where?"
"It's not on the radar yet - but I can smell it."
"Nothing here."
"Nothing on long-range. Sir, is it possible you could have made a mis-smelling?"
"Listen, butter-pat head, my nostril-hairs are vibrating faster than the springs on a Spaniard's honeymoon bed! I'm telling you, there's something out there!"
"Don't get your double-helix in a strict! No one's questioning your nasal integrity."
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
They all thought he was mad when he invented the smelloscope.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Due to movement of fluids in your body at zero-g, or perhaps some other cause you lose your sense of smell in space. Food tastes crappy so you put lots of hot sauce on it. An astronaut told me her biggest concern was a drop of hot sauce floating around and getting in her eye. So if you smell something in space it's got to be a strong smell.
Look, I know from watching movies that space has a sound.
Now, it has to have a smell too? I'm deliberately avoiding the Uranus joke that someone else is surely going to make.
Fspace Ahas Rmetallic Tsmell
Given that the uppermost layers of the atmosphere are superheated and are almost certainly spraying off into space, you wouldn't need to be in what could conventionally be considered the atmosphere in order to be in the presence of atmospheric gasses. The second consideration is that there ARE a lot of charged particles in space. The solar winds, for a start. Those will indeed have a "smell", but I doubt it's detectable by humans. Then there's probably enough hard radiation in space (and secondary radiation from the suit) to ionise the oxygen to some degree. I think a serious study is worthwhile and meaningful, but there are a lot of possibilities.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
In space, no one can hear you sniff... wait a sec - that's not right.
So the suits just come back from a spacewalk all fresh and clean, the volatiles have boiled off and UV has blasted whatever's left. I smell a spinoff! Ultra-expensive space vacuum dry cleaning for rich swells.
Maybe they need to de-press the ISS every six months or so just to give it that "springtime fresh" airing out. I haven't actually asked an astronaut about this, but how the heck they keep that place from smelling up over time is a mystery.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Zoidberg: Hurray! People are paying attention to me!
Now that I have out-quoted you, I win slashdot. Where are my 72 virgins?
Flying into Mir, it smells sort of like dirty sweat socks in a guys locker room. Actual smell of space, though, thats a very interesting question. When we would open a hatch, for example, that was exposed to the vacuum of space, uh, theres always a double hatch, and so you open the one hatch, you now have the pure smell of space. And its a uh, tough you know, any aroma is tough to describe, but it has a distinct smell, and its sort of a burned-out, uh, after-the-fire, the next-morning-in-your-fireplace sort of smell. And thats the real smell of the vacuum of space.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1118331
create an "Oh NO zone..." Might be useful as a home intruder disposal tool (as long as I sleep wearing functional air packs). But, I suppose law would consider it a "booby trap".
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
When I was working for NASA funded satellite projects, my coworker Manfred created this fancy software (which likely he is still working on and selling) that would track space trash. This is all the junk that ends up orbiting the planet, such as defunct satellites, dropped screws, bits that fall off of spacecraft, etc. The software would display an image of earth, and a red dot for every bit of space junk being tracked by the software. (I think it had to be at least 1 cm to qualify.) Anyway, the image of the planet was enveloped by the cloud of red dots. There isn't much space around the earth that isn't full of our own, human created, space trash. As disappointing as it is, what they are smelling, isn't "space", but the human pollution of space exploration.
In Space, Nobody Can Hear You Fart!
So, vacuum smells like metal... maybe kind of like rusty iron? If your capillaries in your nose burst, and the only gas in your nose is your evaporating blood, maybe that's what you smell? Stop breathing vacuum, dufus!
... if you take into account that showers don't work without gravity.
Without RTFA, I first thought he was talking about similar metallic taste than reported for example by the Russian "volunteers" clearing Chernobyl in 1986, as there's surely enough ionizing stuff out there (see for example the several astronaut reports of bright flashes during EVA, which are attributed to certain particles hitting the eye). However it seems that this case is about something much less interesting :(
U+F8FF
this has a rather "ground control to major tom" feel to it
"my god, it's full of smells"
After over 40 years in space this is the first guy to bring this up?? Hm... Smells fishy if you ask me..
Reminds me of an anecdote from one the Apollo 17 astronauts: He noticed that moon dust smelled and wondered why no one had mentioned it before. Eventually he realized it was a cultural thing: In pilot culture, "out of the ordinary" can get you grounded, where "out of the ordinary" is what science culture is all about. And the early Apollo astronauts were all pilots, mostly test pilots.
It only takes one curious person to open a new door and most of us don't notice the door is there, even if we pass it by every day of our lives.
I'm here EdgeKeep Inc.
dealt it!!
This Space has a flava!!!!
Ass-tronauts have been farting since day one and its a miracle that the station doesn't smell like shit and dead skin by now.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
In space no one will hear you scream, but everyone will smell your fart.
"In space, no one can hear you sniff"
Of course you know all about the Wooden Horse? Wouldn't shit.
(say it out loud)
I think he has been watching to much Futurama. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Big_Piece_of_Garbage there is a link describing the episode.
Why should your nose (or really your brain) not "smell" something when there is really nothing?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Nobody make a smell...
"Before humanity, the stars shone throughout the heavens. After humanity [has gone], the stars will continue to shine"
from his blog "It reminded me of pleasant sweet smelling welding fumes"
The guy's definitely a head. They're probably passing a spliff
up there.
I think I read they're actually growing weed in space for use
during the Mars trip.
that's space you're smelling???
Its far out man, It,ll blow you're mind man.
Because in this very situation there are lots of things that smell. This guy is inside the small compartment of their little space station and says hello to his colleagues. I think they all are rather smelly. You should read TFA from time to time.
Additionally, LATFP (Look At The Fine Picture) where "ISS Science Officer Don Pettit assists STS-113 spacewalker John Herrington". I don't see the "nothing" there that doesn't smell.
I know the smell he's talking about. When I took welding I liked the smell given off by molten/vaporizing/burning steel (and I suppose some of the residues on it...)
:p
But really, I guess that's what airlock pressurization systems smell like. What are the odds they were welded at some point in their construction then not ground down and finished up tidily inside? If you just "cracked a window" and took a sniff, you'd smell all the air in your room flying out into space.
While I've enjoyed all the jokes here, I have to echo a couple of posts. This guy HAS BEEN in space. It defies all logic that there's a smell, but this guy, presumably at least as sane as the rest of us (insert joke about jealous diaper-wearing astronauts here), smelled something. He draws no concrete conclusions, even seems slightly incredulous about it all. But a stink is a stink, and that's that.
I've had the opportunity to talk to Eugene Cernan for a few minutes and hear a much longer speech from him after that, and it kind of seemed like his level of wonder increased with the number of scientifically rooted things he did. In short, who the hell knows what's going to happen up there?
My immediate thought when I read it was, "oh, like when people smell cold." Anyone who's ever spent a cold winter anywhere knows that people coming in from the cold smell "cold." I don't know what the source of it is, but there's a very specific smell to cold people. I wonder if this is the same idea. Maybe it's what cold does to the various fibers in clothing, maybe it's the smell of skin and hair rehydrating after being in a very cold, dry environment. Or maybe it's some kind of short-circuit in our olfactory nerves that happens with a sudden temperature dip (though you don't smell it when you walk out into the cold -- you only smell it on people COMING IN from the cold). Never thought much about it until now, but I bet it's the same kind of thing.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
He doesn't smell the space, he smells the molecules that escape from his equipment after being subjected to the low temperature of space and then back to higher temperature of ISS.
Scientists also discover that space tastes like chicken!
I had an ionizer too (until it broke). It was odd -- some of my family members could smell it, some couldn't. It could be a genetic thing. Some people say cyanide smells like walnuts. I can't smell that but I can smell ozone.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
After all I, being only an earthbound armchair scientist, would never be able to sniff out the one single "outer-space" molecule swimming in each cubic centimeter of airlock air amongst the 2.7x10^19 other non-outer-space air molecules, but that's just me. And those welded compressed air storage tanks that contained the airlock air just before re-pressurizing?...well they DO they smell different than "outer space". A trained astronaut would know...
While you may be correct I really doubt it's the smell of "space", rather the smell of the air lock or the outside of ISS.
Pez mixed with redbull? If that won't get you buzzin, I dunno what will.
Never monkey with another monkey's monkey.
Hmm... I was under the impression that space was largely filled with void and a few trace hydrogen molecules aside from dust and cosmic rays. More hydrogen density as you get closer to a gravity well and possibly some helium too.
Now, if this guy smelled a metallic sweet smell, I'd have to ask is it not the material of the space suits slowly breaking down from it's exposure to space?
But hey, he's been there and I haven't.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
I speak England very best
No "space smell" only "space funk" originating from Don Pettit's lack of hygiene.
It might be. As I said, I never smelled it --but now that you mention it I think it was almonds.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
He wasn't noticing smell from outer space. He was noticing something permeating the environment that might have come from a gas floating in space. Since there is no air in space there's no odor. Odor is just molecules of matter floating in some form of gas. He was smelling a blob of gas.
Since there is no air in outer space there is no sound either.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
That's one faint odor for [a] man, one giant stench for mankind.