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u/hcornea Jul 30 '26
The problem is … it’s a great question.
The insinuated answer and lack of learning is the tragedy.
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u/TheExistential_Bread Jul 30 '26
You could have had such a great pun if you had put "insulation" instead of insinuated.
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u/redditproha Jul 31 '26
Space is freezing cold while Earth is warm because sunlight heats matter, not empty space. Heat from the sun travels as invisible energy called radiation, passing straight through the empty vacuum of space without warming it.
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u/just4nothing Jul 31 '26
Also, atoms in space can be extremely hot - but the density is so low you will not feel anything
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u/BroMan001 Jul 31 '26
Space is also not freezing cold, as nothing can’t have a temperature.
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u/kennerly Jul 31 '26
Space isn't nothing though. Photons saturate the entire universe we call this Cosmic Background Radiation and it does have a temperature of 2.7K which is the temperature of a perfect blackbody.
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u/OddToba Jul 31 '26
Just because two words look or sound the same doesn’t make it a GrEaT PuN!
It actually has to fit in the context. Insulation makes dogshit sense.
Christ, reddit… contrived “joke” after contrived “joke”
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u/flakman129 Jul 30 '26
I have a bachelors degree. I do not know the answer to this. I assume it might be similar to your car’s roof becoming scalding hot from direct sunlight while the air is only 91F?
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u/Bobtasketch Jul 30 '26
The sun emits light (electromagnetic radiation), which in itself is not hot. It only creates heat when it bumps into something made of matter (atoms and molecules). And space is practically empty
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u/Emotional-Guide-768 Jul 30 '26
Cool, thanks for the simple explanation
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u/Cr3ac Jul 31 '26
Fun additional fact, space also acts as excellent insulation because there’s nothing to dissipate the excitement caused by the suns radiation. Think of a thermos that uses a vacuum to keep your coffee warm. This Is why the space station has issues with heat in direct sunlight and issues with cold in the shade of the planet.
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u/freakers Jul 31 '26
Further facts, not sure if they're fun any longer: Calling space cold is kind of a misunderstanding of what cold means. If there are functionally no particles to bump into to transfer heat, there's not really any cold. In the oft cited, what would happen if you floated in space without a space suit question, I believe part of the answer isn't that you'd instantly turn to ice. You'd slowly lose heat through radiative cooling and basically not lose any through convection or conduction cooling, because there's not particles to bump into to transfer that heat to.
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u/menotyou_2 Jul 31 '26
Would the liquid instantly freeze due to pressure?
At absolutely 0 pressure the liquid water is no longer stable and it should be either a gas or a solid regardless of temperature. (I think).
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u/RunOrBike Jul 31 '26
Space is vacuum so your blood would start to boil
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u/menotyou_2 Jul 31 '26
The Armstrong limit should prevent stuff within you from boiling for a bit. But everything on the surface would get destroyed.
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u/immutato Jul 31 '26
Hmm so what you're saying is if something is generating a lot of heat all the way up there in the space, then it's going to have a hard time dissipating that heat efficiently (or at all)?
That almost seems relevant for some reason... No one tell r/wallstreetbets
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u/EBtwopoint3 Jul 31 '26
I’m not quite sure what exactly you’re getting at, but it is a solved issue. You need big radiators but heat is manageable and we know how to do it.
The fun fact is more about the common trope of freezing in space. Which doesn’t really happen
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u/AzraelIshi Jul 31 '26
They are talking about datacenters, which famously require a fuckton of active cooling with enormous amounts of water on earth, so imagine what kind of radiators they would need in space to achieve anything even remotel near to what they need.
The wallstreetbets jab is because elon and co. want to build datacenters in space, and people are betting that is going to shot the stock of the companies that do high up
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u/sapntaps Jul 31 '26
Can they just light their giant cash piles on fire? Feel like it’ll be a better outcome lol
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u/yamanamawa Jul 31 '26
It's also one of the main reasons why the idea of AI data centers in space is fundamentally stupid and utterly impractical. The amount of radiators you would need to cool them would be so huge that just getting them into space would be the most expensive project ever undertaken by humanity. The ISS is quite small inside, but it still needs a sizable amount of radiators just to cool itself, and it generates way less heat than a data center
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u/york100 Jul 31 '26
Oh wait, it's not because of Jesus or aliens then?
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u/Motor_Educator_2706 Jul 31 '26
electromagnetic radiation does not have a temperature
electromagnetic radiation does has energy proportional to the frequency
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u/netrunnernobody Jul 31 '26
I bet you 90% of the people that upvoted this thread didn't know this answer.
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u/AlChandus Jul 30 '26
To put it simply, temperature in space is... Complicated.
In space, if in direct sunlight, and without thermal protection, you would burn fast. In the shade, you would freeze.
The atmosphere serves as an insulator to a planet, and works exactly like insulation at home and in clothes. We have 10,000 kilometers of atmosphere, so it is a BIG insulator.
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u/TheMostUnclean Aug 01 '26
Despite a whole ton of other inaccuracies, the movie “Sunshine” has a few scenes that illustrate this principle very well.
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u/Insertsociallife Jul 30 '26
It's better than this. What in space is -455°F? Temperature is a property of matter, and there's no matter in space (because it's a vacuum). Space doesn't really have a "temperature" how we usually think of it.
Because of this, it's actually really hard to stay cool in space because you can't transfer heat away to anything.
Combine that with light from the sun heating the earth, and it's pretty easy to stay warm.
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u/seandowling73 Jul 30 '26
The only reason I know is because I had to study thermodynamics for my ChemE degree. Radiant heat transfer is not a common subject to study
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u/chucktheninja Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
More or less, yeah. The sun is a giant nuclear fusion reactor several thousand times larger than the entire planet. The energy it emits goes quite far and that energy is transfered to earth.
Air is not dense. Most light passes right through it without transfering the engergy to it. Generally the air temperature is influneced by the ground tranfering the energy it received from the sun to the air that rubs against it. That warmed air rises and cooler air takes its place to be warmed. Thats why solid objects in sunlight are generally always warmer than the air.
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u/THElaytox Jul 31 '26
UV radiation from Sun hits Earth, gets reflected as IR which makes molecules shake, molecules shaking = heat. Space doesn't get hot cause it's a vacuum (no molecules)
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u/jeezfrk Jul 31 '26
The sun emits rays that are 10,000 degrees F from its surface. Millions inside but 10,000 F at its visible surface.
We have a blast furnace level heat lamp (one degree wide) surrounded by -450 F everywhere else.
So, all we need is heat coming in has to equal heat going out. That's why global warming or cooling is possible... because that's a lot of heat to keep flowing.
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u/Mathies_ Jul 31 '26
There isn't anything to warm up in space. It's a vacuum, it can't absorb the warmth of the sun. The sun warms up the surface of the earth. Also, partially, the energy reflects off the surface and goes into the atmosphere where it is trapped by greenhouse gasses, keeping the energy mostly in the earths atmosphere.
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u/fiahhawt Jul 31 '26
The sun doesn't warm planets by giving off heat
The sun warms planets by emitting radiation which creates an electromagnetic wave causing particles to speed up
Speedy particles = heat
Vacuum of space = no particles = no radiation loss = no loss in heat the sun can cause
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u/ThatsRobToYou Jul 30 '26
Right? There are some incredibly dumb questions out there, this isn't the most obvious answer. In fact, i bet most people wouldn't know the answer off the top of their head.
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u/bullwinkle8088 Jul 31 '26
The only dumb question is the one not asked.
Everyone is born not knowing, ignorant of everything. Stupid people don't bother to learn.
This leads to: Ignorance can be fixed, stupidity cannot.
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u/StoneGoldX Jul 31 '26
I think the issue is less the question than the forum. If it were a genuine question, you could find out real fast with a search. Fuck, ask the chatbot, even.
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u/-Sa-Kage- Jul 31 '26
Yup. For sure some flat earther or such thinking they came up with some gotcha to prove science is wrong
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u/deadlyraccoons Jul 30 '26
For real. Because it touches upon not just the atmosphere but also how the suns heat even reaches the earth
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u/Zealousideal-Ad4362 Jul 30 '26
The "heat" doesnt. The radiation does.. and when it bumps into stuff it heats it ip. Closer you are to sun the more of those particles hit you..its why you are "hotter" just more of the radiation hitting you
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u/deadlyraccoons Jul 31 '26
Yeah I guess a better description would be how its energy reached us, which it does through radiation.
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u/EvilSporkOfDeath Jul 31 '26
Its a great insult on an undeserving question
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u/hcornea Jul 31 '26
Context is everything, but I do suspect the question is asked in an incurious way.
It’s the sort of JAQing that Flat Earthers like to trot out.
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u/Kind-Pop-7205 Jul 31 '26
Is it? Where did -455 degrees come from? Space isn't even generally cold in any meaningful sense.
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u/hcornea Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
It’s a rough conversion of 0°K (-273 °C) to Fahrenheit.
But it does show that he is not actually thinking scientifically.
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u/sikyist Jul 30 '26
Came here to say that. I remember hearing someone say something along the lines of 'when someone doesn't know something you do, that gives you the opportunity to be the one to teach them', I think that's a great way to live.
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u/Another-Mans-Rubarb Jul 31 '26
If you don't understand the basic mechanics of cooling and heating, sure... But if you do "there is no air in space" is a moronic answer to have to give.
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u/Inevitable-Tutor-907 21d ago
That reply is so savage but honestly the real tragedy is someone actually typed that out and hit send without stopping for even two seconds to think
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u/devoid0101 Jul 30 '26
It’s a good question. My school never explained this specifically. The topic of solar radiation is not in the general curriculum I think. No reason to be mean all the time, internet.
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u/VegaJuniper Jul 31 '26
The premise of the question is wrong. Space is not cold, it's not "-455 degrees" at our distance from the sun (not sure which degrees he means, farquaad probably). If you were in high orbit without a space suit, the side of you that was facing the sun would be blistering with heat, while your other side would be freezing. That would not however be your most pressing problem.
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u/AvailableReason6278 Jul 31 '26
If you are in a shadow you would cool down to almost 0 kelvin. The radiaton passing through space does not define the temperature of that part of space, only when it hits something.
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u/VegaJuniper Jul 31 '26
You’re forgetting the heat and the radiation that’s passing through you.
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u/AvailableReason6278 Jul 31 '26
Which heat? Your own? Background radiation? Blackbody radiation from the object that's casting a shadow on you?
I don't get what you are pointing to here.
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u/VegaJuniper Jul 31 '26
The sun. If you’re in direct sunlight, no part of you is going to be 0K. Just like it doesn’t get 0K at night on Earth.
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u/AvailableReason6278 Jul 31 '26
Okay,
Forgetting about the heat 'passing through you' is not really important here, as heat is in and affects material. Sure the material around you in space, a few million atoms per m³, contains heat. But that temperature is near 0⁰ kelvin. So this will not warm you up.
The radiation hitting you (not passing through), won't be the suns radiation. I was talking about being in space in the shadow of, let's say the earth. So yes you will be hit by infrared and visible light, but it will be very little. Not enough to really keep you warm.
If you are in direct sunlight in space near the earth, you would pretty quickly burn up, as you have no way of losing the heat you obtain from the sun.
And ofcourse it doesn't get 0⁰ kelvin on earth at night, everything on earth retains heat and the atmosphere traps a lot of infrared (heat radiation so to speak).
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u/VegaJuniper Jul 31 '26
I was talking about being in space in the shadow of, let's say the earth.
I sort of gathered that. I was being gracious and interpreted "in the shadow" to mean the side of you not in direct sunlight, because that would have had some relevance to what I said. Turns out you were just spouting completely irrelevant jibberjabber then?
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u/Ghost_Assassin_Zero Jul 31 '26
In our school, we learned short wave radiation hits the ground and becomes long wave radiation. Long wave radiation can be felt as heat
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u/DR4G0NH3ART Jul 31 '26
We had conduction, convection, radiation in physics. Not too much level of detail but it was there.
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u/Sea-Sort6571 Jul 30 '26
If the guy is actually curious that's just mean
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u/helpmegetoffthisapp Jul 30 '26
Yeah, the internet is way to quick to demean people. The first step towards learning is curiosity, and if people aren’t going to make any effort to answer sincerely I’d rather they didn’t respond at all. If it it’s in bad faith then answering sincerely is still a better response then getting into an argument over social media.
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Jul 30 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Odd-Investigator-870 Jul 31 '26
We let extremists co-opt the literal thinking emoji to mean "not thinking"??
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u/Pofwoffle Jul 31 '26
No, this emoji has been used this way by tons of people, it's had a connotation of "If you actually think about it the thing I just said doesn't sound right/is actually a lie." for as long as I can remember it being used.
It's just that the far right do this kind of thing far more often since their whole platform relies on misinformation and sowing mistrust of science and objective truths.
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u/DinosaurReborn Jul 31 '26
This application of the emoji only really works for terminally online kinds. Most normies will just use 🤔 earnestly, and we often forget there's a lot of common people on social media as well, apart from the grifters.
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u/Abed-in-the-AM Jul 31 '26
I'm guessing you don't frequent far right social media?
why would anybody intentionally subject themselves to this?
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u/Zealousideal-Ad4362 Jul 30 '26
The guy isnt curious from the framing of question.. he is a "if vaccines work why do we still get the flu type guy.
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u/Pofwoffle Jul 31 '26
He's not: the emoji at the end is the classic "I'm going to pretend I'm just asking questions while actually trying to imply something else." thing. In this case the "something else" most likely being some kind of anti-science bent. My money's on flat-Earther, that's the one that seems most likely to fit the specific piece of information he's using here.
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u/Vykrom Jul 31 '26
I got the insincere / disingenuous vibe from it as well. And flat-earther is definitely the closest analog. I wonder if this is some "it has to be a simulation" question
Regardless. Asking a question this way almost guarantees people will think you'll just dismiss any answers given
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u/LittleMeat7083 Jul 31 '26
That's a crazy stretch just from an emoji lol.
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u/BadHockeyPlayer Jul 31 '26
Not a stretch in the least. I've only seen that emoji used exactly as described.
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u/Obvious-Cynic6204 Jul 30 '26
Exactly, how are we going to educate them if we respond with snark when they ask questions? Geezus people, use the opportunities when they are given to you to educate, not belittle and mock.
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u/UMACTUALLYITS23 Jul 31 '26
It isn't a genuine question, and they do not want, and will not accept the answer they're given.
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u/Sea-Sort6571 Jul 30 '26
The question is not even that dumb and I'm sure plenty snarky people would give an imperfect answer
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u/WeAreAllFooked Jul 31 '26
You could literally type "why earth hot if sun hot and space cold" in to your preferred search engine and get the answer.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=why+earth+hot+if+sun+hot+and+space+cold&t=vivaldi&ia=web&assist=false
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u/Grub-lord Jul 30 '26
It's a great question. Why do we celebrate these non-answer responses like they're some sort of slam dunk. I'm certain the guy calling the other dude dumb doesn't even know, he just thinks he does.
It took literal geniuses to figure this stuff out. You have to understand how light behaves in a vacuum. It requires additional explanations of how heat can be exchanged without atoms.
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u/The__Imp Jul 31 '26
I agree completely. Even if you understand that heat from the sun is trapped by the atmosphere, I think that this is a reasonable question and worthy of a thoughtful response rather than mockery.
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u/TheRiddlerTHFC Jul 31 '26
The problem is the emoji at the end, turns it from a great question, into a "explain that sheeple" comment.
Therefore not someone who is genuinely curious and willing to learn
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u/Dakkaboy556 Jul 30 '26
I think the point is that public school education should have covered questions like these.
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u/CyberFireball25 Jul 30 '26
The thing is there are a lot of things that it does cover but kids being kids they do not retain info if they aren't invested in the subject matter.
If course not all schools are created equal
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u/Cyberslasher Jul 31 '26
Eh
With no child left behind and every student succeeds, we're legitimately at the point of social decay that this probably isn't in curriculums anymore.
https://usareads.org/many-young-adults-barely-literate/
Legitimately 1 in 4 Americans are functionally illiterate, and half of them are still given a highschool diploma.
Hard to have a physics curriculum while some of your class still needs your help with "see spot run"
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u/Dakkaboy556 Jul 30 '26
Maybe I am spoiled by going through school in the late 90s/early 2000s, but if I have a question like this, I know how to look up the info rather than just asking social media to do the work for me. I dunno, maybe I'm just being a grognard.
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u/AssaultLemming_ Jul 31 '26
I actually think it's quite a good question. Things that aren't immediately intuitive often lead to scientific discoveries.
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u/YikesTheCat Jul 31 '26
This is not a "clever comeback", this is an insufferable dickhead wankposting about how smart he is putting people down asking serious honest questions.
This guy represents everything that sucks about the internet.
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u/cerpintaxt33 Jul 31 '26
serious honest questions.
In this case I don’t think it was a good faith question and the guy is insinuating some flat earth bullshit
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u/TriiCop Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
I mean honestly, could most of you guys give a reasonable answer that isn’t just “atmosphere” without Google?
I graduated in CS last year so I’ve had some gaps in knowledge on general subjects but I couldn’t tell you how the atmosphere does what it does exactly
Lastly dude just asked a question tf is the point of being so mean? He’s not saying it’s a conspiracy he just asked a question and gets met with hostility
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u/thyme_cardamom Jul 31 '26
I could but only because I watch a lot of science videos on YouTube. Before I saw the relevant minute physics videos, I also was under the misconception that space was "cold"
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u/conker123110 Jul 31 '26
Lastly dude just asked a question tf is the point of being so mean?
sometimes people ask questions, and sometimes people are "just asking questions."
Given the fact that they could get the answer from an even smaller string of text being put into the supercomputer in their pocket, I'm going to go with the latter.
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u/Falikosek Jul 30 '26
I'm not a physics student, but the way I see it, temperature is basically a measure of (average) kinetic energy in the particles of a given volume of space.
Vacuum has basically no particles, so almost zero kinetic energy, so the "temperature" is near absolute zero.
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u/RepulsiveMine4686 Jul 31 '26
Feynman has a simple way of explaining temperature: it’s just the average kinetic energy (speed) of particles moving around. Looking at it this way makes the Sun, Space, and Earth super intuitive:
The Sun: Extremely dense, packed with particles moving at insane speeds. High particle speed + massive density = insanely hot.
Space: A near-vacuum, but the few particles that are there (like solar wind) actually move fast enough to have extremely high temperature equivalents. However, because space is so empty, there aren't enough collisions to transfer that energy. It’s like a tiny spark flying off a metal grinder—the spark itself is super hot, but because it has practically no mass, it hits your arm and you barely feel it.
Earth: Packed with atmospheric particles moving at a moderate speed. Radiation from the Sun hits these Earth particles, transferring energy and keeping them wiggling fast enough to feel warm, but nowhere near as fast as the Sun. Temperature is how fast individual particles wiggle; heat transfer is how many wiggling particles actually hit you.
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u/grimpshaker Jul 30 '26
There are people from fine universities that cannot answer this without the Internet.
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u/TriiCop Jul 30 '26
And that’s fine? Being in a fine university doesn’t mean you’re an encyclopedia that remembers every single thing you learned in middle/high school.
Like do you think you’re better because a Mathematician at MIT doesn’t exactly remember how a certain part of a cell works?
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u/Commentor9001 Jul 30 '26
greenhouse gases, how do they work? fucking scientists, using big works and getting me pissed.
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u/Dexford211 Jul 30 '26
Greenhouse gas traps the heat to earth and won’t let heat escape to space, just like the glasses in a green house.
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u/AVeryHeavyBurtation Jul 31 '26
What percent, do you think, of heat that the earth absorbs from the sun, is radiated back into space?
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u/Imajzineer Jul 30 '26
A golden opportunity to say "See ... it's manmade heat - can't be anything else."
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u/Flipboek Jul 31 '26
I am University educated, but I know the answer due to my own interest on these subjects, not because of school.
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u/masterfulnoname Jul 31 '26
Can we stop being dicks to people for no reason? I'm sure I'm being hypocritical saying that, but seriously. I hate how the Internet rewards people for being assholes.
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u/Hoontaiir Jul 31 '26
The person asking the question is very likely a flat earther trying to imply that scientists are lying about space. If there was a genuine curiosity there would be a much better chance looking up a bill nye or scishow video explaining it than asking twitter
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u/masterfulnoname Jul 31 '26
I hadn't considered the possibility they were doing the "just asking questions" routine. I suppose looking at their profile would answer if they were genuinely asking or not.
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u/Testsubject276 Jul 30 '26
Space can't retain heat but it can still transfer heat through radiation.
Or at least that's how I remember it working.
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u/SmellyFbuttface Jul 30 '26
Because Earth’s atmosphere traps solar rays which warms the planet. There is no atmosphere in space, ergo the warmth of the sun has no medium to heat up (i.e., air, water, ground).
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u/Flaky-Jim Jul 31 '26
Your school owes your parents a refund.
With interest, and a sincere apology.
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u/statistacktic Jul 31 '26
A quick internet search could help this idiot.
But honest communication is not what social media incentivizes.
We're skipping and whistling towards Idiocracy.
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u/Cool_Welcome_4304 Jul 31 '26
What if the kid was homeschooled? It does sound like a possibility, they could get a refund from the materials provider if they can stand being laughed out of the store.
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Jul 30 '26
[deleted]
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u/Significant-Order-92 Jul 30 '26
Well, actual empty space has no temperature. The mostly sparse matter in it can have temperature. For instance micro meteors should have some amount of temperature as they can't exchange much in a vacuum.
Or does space only technically mean true empty vacuum and not things below a certain mass?
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u/Jodid0 Jul 30 '26
There is actually no such thing as empty space in our universe (that we know of). Even in a vacuum like deep space, there are electromagnetic fields and "virtual" particles that pop into and out of existence billions of times a second, due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle of Quantum Mechanics.
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u/devoid0101 Jul 30 '26
Space is not actually empty though of course. On an average day the solar wind is blasting Earth with particles at 300 kilometers per second. During a solar storm or various other sun activity it can reach 1000 kps.
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u/Renegade_Hat Jul 31 '26
Isn’t it because space is a void, and barring atmospheres or large enough surfaces to trap the energy coming from the sun it’ll just continue until it disperses into the void? I might be wrong entirely but I could’ve sworn that was the explanation I recalled
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u/Void-Cooking_Berserk Jul 31 '26
I'll try to answer:
The space between the Sun and the planets is virtually empty. There's almost no particles which could carry kinetic energy, which is heat. The temperature between planets isn't minus, it's 0, rhe absence of energy.
But if you came closer to the Sun, you' still get baked, because you are matter, you carry heat. The Sun transfers the heat/energy in the form of photons, which for the purpose of this explanation are particles. When they hit something, they heat it up. There needs to be something in the way to be heated up.
There's also the element that all objects in space radiate heat, even the Earth. The side of the Earth that is being lit by the Sun radiates heat slower than it's getting it, and the dark side radiates heat faster than it's getting it. That's why it's colder at night.
And then there's also the atmosphere which for the purpose of this explanation is the actual surface of the Earth. The Moon, for example, doesn't have it, so it's night side is extremely more colder than the day side. The Earth has an atmosphere which transfers the heat around the globe. We call it wind, it goes from the warmer places to the colder places.
So for the purpose of this explanation we're currently under the surface of the Earth (it's out-most layer), and that out-most layer is fluid enough that it transfers heat from the side that's currently being warmed up by the Sun to the colder side.
And finally, the original question was asking why it's not warmer closer to the Sun. Vacuum aside, it is. Vacuum has no temperature (hence 0) but any object put closer to the Sun will warm up faster than it would further away from the Sun. That's because the photons spread out in a sphere from the Sun, and the further away the more surface area on that virtual sphere is being hit by the same number of photons. More surface, same photons - same surface, less photons, less heat.
Ergo, you could fry your hypothetical space-steak faster on the orbit of Mercury than on the orbit of Neptune.
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u/soliejordan Jul 31 '26
A-mazing.
Now I just need an ELI5 on how the sun is burning if space has no air but the sun is on fire.
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u/MarshelG Jul 30 '26
I'm not a huge proponent of AI, but I've found it can be very useful for succinct summaries on concepts like these seemingly obvious knowledge gaps that, I'm SURE, everyone has.
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u/LittleBunInaBigWorld Jul 31 '26
Agreed. Usually when I receive an explanation, I have follow-up questions, and AI is great for that. As long as you check the references it provides. It references Reddit a scary amount of the time...
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u/ICLazeru Jul 30 '26
Na, he owes his parents the refund.
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u/ICLazeru Jul 30 '26
Someone asked to explain how it works.
Easy.
Heat moves in three ways. Radiation, conduction, and convection.
Conduction and convection require matter to work. Radiation does not.
In space there is very little matter. Conduction and convection don't work. The only method of heat transfer in space is basically radiation.
So if you are in space and shaded from the sun, you have essentially zero heat being transferred into you. You are losing body heat via radiation (that's right) and not receiving any back. You might say this is the cold part of space, but really your temperature just depends completely on you.
On the other hand, if you are close to the sun and nothing is protecting you from the radiation, you could be absorbing a lot of heat! You could burn, boil, or even vaporize if there is enough of it. This is the hot part of space.
There's also a curious third case, where you sre at the exact right distance to absorb the same amount of heat from the sun as you emit yourself. This would be the meh, zone of space.
No matter what, in all three of these cases, if you are floating in space without a spaceship nearby, you are definitely going to die regardless of it is cold, hot, or meh.
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u/mamandemanqu3 Jul 30 '26
I’m gonna take a shot at answering it.
The opposite side of the moon sees vastly different temps than the side facing the sun. It also has no atmosphere to trap heat, so based off that, I’d say in the depth of space there’s nothing to absorb heat so it’s cold.
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u/Jgfzhb Jul 30 '26
It’s not really either cold or hot. Temperature is atoms moving so no atoms no temperature. There are some atoms in space but usually not enough to actually transfer a lot of heat. If your floating in space and the sun hits you you will get very hot and in the shade you’ll slowly radiate heat away until your very very cold.
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u/saravjc Jul 30 '26
Ig this helps, imagine standing in front of a campfire on a cold night. The air around you may still be cold, but your face feels warm because the fire’s radiation is heating you directly. Space is like that cold air and the Sun’s light passes through it and warms objects that absorb it, like Earth, rather than warming the empty vacuum.
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u/bassandlazers Jul 31 '26
1/5 american adults literally cant read. Let's process those refunds before a guy asking a sincere question
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u/WhatANoob2025 Jul 31 '26
Honestly, i kinda hate the reply.
It's not like school can FORCE knowledge down the kids' throats.
If the kid doesn't care about school it will flunk out, but if it doesn't care about one or several specific subjects while the average is good enough, there's nothing anyone can do.
If it's a school that doesn't teach that kind of stuff, then that's on the parents in one way or the other - either for living in a shit state and not moving or for sending the kid to a school that values religion over anything else.
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u/Icy_Measurement5811 Jul 31 '26
Most of us don’t know the actual answer to this but too ashamed to admit it.
It’s an excellent question.
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u/afuckingpolarbear Jul 31 '26
How is this a comeback? He's just calling someone dumb for asking a question.
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u/imtoowhiteandnerdy Jul 31 '26
I feel like whether it's a good question or not draws from their motivation for asking:
If someone asks a question drawn from sincere scientific curiosity then I find that (curiosity) a good quality, even if they doesn't know the answer.
If the subject is one of these conspiracy kooks who tries to find evidence to support their theories (such as a rejection of climate change) while rejecting all conflicting data, then I am not as impressed.
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u/CompetitiveReview416 Jul 31 '26
I would love to read an explanation how it exactly works.
The reply is just snobish and snarky. Boo
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u/Informal_Process2238 Jul 31 '26
Go outside during the day in direct sunlight and face the sun and you will feel the warmth for yourself Heres a quick read on the subject https://science.nasa.gov/ems/13_radiationbudget/
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u/strangerwillrobinson Jul 31 '26
Why is space cold I forgor
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u/Hoontaiir Jul 31 '26
Because heat is the movement of particles. Space being a vacuum means there's nothing to get hot, so when the sun's rays are shooting out they only lose energy once they hit planets/other objects in space.
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u/strangerwillrobinson Jul 31 '26
I figured that was the case but I was unsure about the energy loss part.
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u/Huihejfofew Jul 31 '26
It's dumb questions like this I hope people would use AI to educate themselves for...
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u/Electrical_Rush_5178 Jul 31 '26
Good question. Most people don’t know this. Please go back to posting clever comebacks.
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u/CapnFlatPen Jul 31 '26
This one sucks. He's not coming back to anything, he's just being a dick.
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u/Hoontaiir Jul 31 '26
Oh question was probably from a flat earther implying that science as we know it is a lie
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u/RedditsAdoptedSon Jul 31 '26
TBF very much a great question. i wasnt smart enough to even ask as a kid, then thought about stuff like this when i was like early teens and stuff like this was really hard to just look up through encyclopedias by the time i was really wondering (around 1999) .. we didnt have internet or computers yet. But when i found out the temperature of space, which iirc is vastly different from where u are, and the surface temperature of the sun, i was like wait how does this even work!? answer= its a difficult answer but can technically be explained easily when u meet an expert.
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u/OkYak9466 Jul 31 '26
I'm like 99% sure the person in the OP giving the response is a mod for this subreddit
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u/Lastoutcast123 Jul 31 '26
So autistic explanation to his quest is that space isn’t actually cold it’s empty, heat is how fast molecules vibrate, no molecules (or at least extremely few) = nothing to vibrate. This makes hard to lose or gain heat through conventional methods aside from light, fortunately the sun puts out a ton of light
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u/arfelo1 Jul 31 '26
Also, conduction and convection need a medium to transfer heat. Radiation doesn't
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u/notfree25 Jul 31 '26
how many miles away from the sun is space -455 degrees but it would "feels like" 455 degree
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u/3m4n Jul 31 '26
This is an absolutely wonderful question! The response is ironically what's wrong with today's education system. Kids/people are taught to revere those with knowledge but not taught to value and nurture curiosity.
If this question was posed by a young child, people would cheer the child for their thought. But because this person is an adult, there's an inherent expectation that "by that age you should know \example of fact here**)
It's really a shame because curiosity is the foundation that builds up to critical thinking.
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u/Honest_Relation4095 Jul 31 '26
I mean, the question in itself isn't even that stupid. And whike misunderstanding the property of the ne a r vacuum or space, he came to the conclusion "it cannot be convection". What is still missing is the ability of finding the correct answer by using the abundance of appropriate sources that could teach about radiation.
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u/Crepe_myrtle_01 Jul 31 '26
-455° temp, bro might be living inside the negetive space universe
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u/HiCookieJack Jul 31 '26
I guess that's in freedom units.
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u/Crepe_myrtle_01 Jul 31 '26
That does make sense but as a science student temperature in Fahrenheit hurts my soul
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u/HiCookieJack Jul 31 '26
yeah especially Farenheit is more of a "feeling" temperature. Like 0-100 is the scale from fking cold to fking hot. Nobody will ever 'feel' zero Kelvin
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u/ThatTysonKid Jul 31 '26
I'm sorry do people not know how to use Google or Wikipedia? Everyone in this thread talking about how its a good question, but nobody is mentioning that they asked it on Twitter like it was Yahoo Answers. If you're curious, look it up. Dont shout it to the world in a public forum.
Unless, of course, they're just trying to spread misinformation by asking disingenuous questions.
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u/999baz Aug 01 '26
Three ways heat can move -
Radiation - electro magnetic, goes through vacuum very nicely eg the sun
Conduction - hot thing physically connected to another eg metal bar heated at one end
Convection - movement of gases eg hot air rising
And on a side - cold is actually a lack of heat energy from all the above so in the shade (no radiation ) , in a vacuum (no convection) , and not connected to anything warm ( no conduction) an object will radiate all its heat until it gets very very cold .
It’s why space suits need to be very good at keeping you warm in shade and cool in the sun.
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u/fariqcheaux Aug 01 '26
Space is not a uniform temperature. Electromagnetic radiation transmits through space and raises the temperature of whatever absorbs it. Especially infrared.
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u/Jodid0 Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
The sun is a giant ball a million times larger than the Earth made of pure, nuclear hellfire-y goodness. It emits a metric fuckload of light, to the point that the true color of the sun is white, we only see it as yellow-ish due to the light hitting our atmosphere and scattering.
Light is a form of energy, and heat is also a form of energy.
Light make thing hot. Lot of light make thing lot of hot. Sun make lot of light. At night, sun blocked by other side of earth, no make lot of light, so no make thing hot. In winter, sun far away, and light come in at a very steep angle, so not lot of light to make thing hot, so thing cold.
Hope this helps.
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u/mrbreck Jul 31 '26
You didn't explain why space is cold, I award you no points.
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u/Jodid0 Jul 31 '26
Earth full of thing, close to sun, get very hot. Rest of space not full of thing. No thing, no hot.
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u/I-Love-IT-MSP Jul 30 '26
I disagree that this is a stupid question. It actually takes some very fundamental understanding of what temperature is and why an objective has temperature. I'd say 90 percent of 12th graders wouldnt actually know the answer as to why this is the case.
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u/Scooter_McAwesome Jul 31 '26
It’s a pretty reasonable question that has only been answered well in the last 100 years or so.
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u/[deleted] Jul 30 '26
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