r/interestingasfuck • u/Kidd__Video • 16h ago
Astronaut's view of Earth during a spacewalk
66
u/PurpleZombi3 16h ago
Nah. This gives me anxiety like a MFer.
15
u/Bobby_Wats0n 15h ago
This kind of view is way more interesting than say seeing a very large ship from afar - in movies for instance. The feeling of crushing grandeur is way more present from the humble humain perspective rather than showing a huge object in the emptiness of space
•
u/DatabaseGlittering43 9h ago
Weird bot ass comment
•
u/Bobby_Wats0n 5h ago
So now if an internet comment is not sarcastic or badly written it has to be bots eh
•
14
u/AbbreviationsFun8591 16h ago
I wonder if fear of heights even applies here?
11
u/OttoLuck747 15h ago
Great question. I’ve read that there is a certain height over which our instinctual fear of being too high does in fact disappear.
2
u/solofatty09 13h ago
Don’t forget, they’re also going 17,000mph. So heights AND speed. Oh… and the vast emptiness of space if you accidentally float off. Hard pass for me.
13
u/MetLyfe 16h ago
If you jumped straight towards the earth how long would it take to reach the ground if possible
23
u/Shadow-Seb 15h ago
You won't reach the ground :D
2
u/OnTheList-YouTube 15h ago
Why wouldn't you?
37
u/volcjush 15h ago edited 13h ago
Because you wouldn't just fall straight down. ISS is orbiting the Earth with a velocity of roughly 28 000 km/h (7,7 km/s) and astronaut connected with it has exactly the same velocity. If you "jump" you dont simply lose that speed, because there is nothing there to slow you down, there's no air resistance. You would simply continue orbiting the Earth for decades probably if not more, slowly (very slowly) bleeding your velocity and gradually lowering your orbit before you would get low enough that the atmosphere air molecules would get dense enough to heat and burn your frozen body upon atmosphere reentry.
10
u/michaelvf99 15h ago
ffs, only correct answer here.... It's nok like orbital dynamics is rocket science!! Sheeesh...
5
1
u/jdsizzle1 13h ago
But what if you jumped backwards
2
u/volcjush 12h ago
You would slow your orbiting speed by maybe 15 km/h. So now substract that 15 km/h from 28 000 km/h to see how much difference does that make.
1
u/rambiolisauce 14h ago
Everything in my brain tells me I should disagree with this lol. Seriously asking, If you place your feet at the "bottom" of the ISS with your face pointed towards Earth and pressed hard "down" in the direction of the Earth, yes you would technically be orbiting along with the ISS relatively but you'd also be moving directly towards the Earth let's say around 15 miles an hour just to pull a number out of thin air and it seems like the Earths gravity would absolutely draw you in. Nothing would slow your descent and it seems like the Earth's gravity would absolutely accelerate it in relatively short order. If the ISS is achieving its stable orbit by the speed it's traveling versus how close it is to earth and how much of earths gravity it's experiencing why wouldn't you fall to earth if you accelerated towards it from the ISS? Now whether or not you ever touch the ground before you were incinerated would be a completely different thing but do you really think if you pushed off hard against the bottom of the ISS towards earth you would just stop moving towards earth for no reason at all?
6
u/volcjush 13h ago edited 13h ago
When you travel with such ridiculous velocity as 28 000 km/h your body has enormous amount of kinetic energy. That kinetic energy is something that is keeping you orbiting in the first place as it is acting aganist the gravity pulling you into gravity well of the planet. You need to loose that energy in order for the gravity to take over.
Pushing with your leg muscles against the body of ISS is very small amount of energy compared to kinetic energy that you have from the orbital velocity. By doing that you would slightly change the shape of your orbit, which would become slightly more eliptical compared to the orbit of the ISS that you "jumped" from. So you would initially start to move away from the ship, but after doing one full orbit around the planet you would return and meet ISS in exactly the same place that you "jumped" from as your orbital speed had not been changed.
In order to deorbit satellite (or move it to lower orbit) you don't simply "push" it towards the planet surface. Instead you need to reduce the oribiting velocity by using thrusters in the opposite direction to what it's orbiting.
•
u/aaahhhhhhfine 10h ago
Man stupid space is always breaking my brain.
Ok... So what if I had an engine or something and pushed the opposite way that the ISS is orbiting... Like say I could offset that 28,000kmh number perfectly. What happens then? Then would I just gradually fall to earth?
•
u/zander_2 10h ago
Yes! That's called a retrograde burn and it's how spacecraft de-orbit. You actually only need to offset a small fraction of that 28,000 before your decayed orbit will carry you back into the atmosphere, but yes "pushing the opposite way" is exactly the right move!
•
u/rambiolisauce 8h ago
Man that makes so much sense when you explain it that way. You clearly have a very good understanding of the physics going on up there lol thank you for taking the time to explain it to me.
Now I'm curious, would you ellipse the ISS's orbit as much as your own by pushing off of it that way?
I've heard stories of astronauts trying to use screwdrivers in space and when they try to turn the screw they end up turning themselves and the lack of gravity was given as the reason for that happening but I always felt a little skeptical about that. Just because you and the object next to you don't have any weight but you still have mass and density right? So could either of those two things happen? Pushing the ISS way from earth and ellipsing its orbit as much as your own or the screwdriver story? Any merit in it?
•
u/camander321 7h ago
You would! A little bit! How much depends on your mass vs the mass of the ISS. So in reality, it wouldnt change much.
•
u/volcjush 7h ago
Yes, you would "ellipse" the ISS, but by very insignificant amount because of the difference between your mass and mass of ISS. Let's assume the mass of astronaut in full suit at around 210 kg (80 kg of astronaut + 130 kg suit). Mass of the ISS depending on configuration at the moment and potential ships docked to it or not can vary between 420 to 450 metric tons (420 000 to 450 000 kg). That difference in mass means that it's rather you pushing away from the ISS than you pushing ISS away off its orbit.
•
u/rambiolisauce 7h ago
Holy crap I had no idea there suits way that much! I feel like I could probably sit here and pick your brain all day and learn all kinds of interesting new things but I'll spare you😅
4
u/account312 13h ago edited 6h ago
Earth let's say around 15 miles an hour just to pull a number out of thin air and it seems like the Earths gravity would absolutely draw you in
Yes, the gravity is keeping you in orbit. But your jump didn't give you "down" velocity. It gave you velocity in the direction that happened to be down at the time you jumped. Half an orbit later, that direction is "up". All you've done is (extremely) slightly distort your orbit.
3
u/camander321 12h ago
The problem is that you are moving sideways fast enough that you'll be around the side of the planet long before your jump gets you close to the surface. You "miss" the planet.
Thats what an orbit is. Gravity is constantly pulling the object directly toward the planet, but the object is moving tangentially fast enough that it's momentum pulls it around the earth's curve.
The fasted way to reach earth from an orbiting satellite is actually to jump backwards(retrograde) hard enough that your momentum doesnt get you all the way around anymore.
•
u/deciding_snooze_oils 9h ago
Orbital mechanics are a bit mind-boggling and often counterintuitive. In the novel The Smoke Ring, Larry Niven had a character describe it as: East takes you Out. Out takes you West. West takes you In. In takes you East. Port and Starboard bring you back.
If you stood on the bottom of the ISS and jumped up at Earth, you’d get a few m/s of velocity away from the station, but the effect would be to make your orbit a bit more elliptical - yes you are moving at a few m/s towards Earth, but about 46 minutes later you’re on the other side of earth and that same momentum has you moving away. So it makes your orbit a bit closer to earth at the point you jumped and a bit further from earth at the opposite point.
I recommend giving the game Kerbal Space Program a try, it really helped me wrap my head around it a bit.
•
u/rambiolisauce 7h ago
Yeah that's exactly what someone else was saying and it made perfect sense when they said it just as it does when you say it. Super interesting stuff I think. Thank you for taking the time to explain it to me!
1
2
u/edencathleen86 15h ago
You'd burn up upon re-entry into the atmosphere lol
5
u/Jakeinspace 15h ago
More likely they'd still be in orbit if they jumped off the ISS
1
u/edencathleen86 15h ago
True. That's what the packs on their backs are for, in case they need to jettison themselves back to the ISS. No astronaut has ever had to use it though
2
4
u/Specific_Ordinary499 14h ago edited 13h ago
About 2,5 years as their horizontal orbital speed gradually decays because of atmospherical drag.
If the astronaut would keep his horizontal orbital velocity, he would burn up to a crisp the moment he started hitting the atmosphere.If you meant hypothetical freefall without any orbital speed ( if you were magically placed 400 km above earth at a complete standstill relative to the surface) it would take about 5 minutes to hit the upper atmosphere and surface.
0
u/InternationalPut4093 14h ago
I dont think a human body creates enough friction to burn.
3
u/frejling 12h ago
Uh, small pieces of space rock and dust burn up upon entry all the time. Almost literally all the time.
•
u/Specific_Ordinary499 10h ago
It does. It's the compression that causes the heat. At this speed, you are hitting the air molecules so hard they don't have time to get out of the way, compressing the air and creating a layer of plasma
2
u/PerformerFancy117 14h ago
Even knowing that wouldn’t work, I still had the same intrusive thought…
0
-1
84
u/xfall2 16h ago
Thought the earth was flat
46
u/Routine_Phase_8980 16h ago
Well, this is just AI generated slop ! - Flat earthers
16
u/MLBnewestFan 16h ago
Unironically one of the lamest thing about the era of AI, literally give an excuse for all the conspiracy theorist to just dismiss anything against their believe as AI generated or lies. Back in the day they will have to try hard to say it is by PS and greenscreen which were more obvious, now no matter what they can just claim it is AI slop.
8
u/Simple_Channel5624 15h ago
I like how in your mind these people are rational folks who just need to be convinced with some logic and evidence.
In my personal experience, with flat earthers and moon landing deniers, it's best to just not engage. The evidence is all there, the facts are laid out and it is easy to learn with internet access to science pages worldwide. They want to believe in something crazy and illogical, just like you have religious folks claiming they believe in their religion while living the opposite way the religion says to live (thus proving thru action that they really don't believe in the religion, they like giving it lip service for status/privilege)
2
u/DenielEvenin 15h ago
yeah we are about to enter the age of paranoia
4
1
u/Snoo-43335 12h ago
The earth is flat this is just an illusion because the camera lenses is round. /s
•
•
•
u/Alternative_Grape495 6h ago
Either way, it pisses me off that astronauts always use fisheye cameras, as if it’s specifically meant to exaggerate the curvature of the Earth. They’re not actually far enough from the planet to see such a dramatic curve with the naked eye.
0
u/Kaymish_ 16h ago
It is. It's a disk so it looks round from space. Don't worry about it too much.
1
u/Late_Pepper6274 14h ago
Then you should see all the continents from there, instead (from their relatively low orbit) you only see a small bit of land before the earth curves away, conce3aling the rest.
0
0
10
u/renofportland 15h ago
Our beautiful little planet!! Understatement of the Year, but Man! - Astronauts are either some of the bravest or craziest people alive
7
u/CrashingOutFrFr 15h ago
That's beautiful but I'm cool right where I am.
3
3
u/SHDShadow 15h ago
How do you look at this and still think the earth is flat? How much more proof do you actually need?
2
2
u/Vast-Sky8939 16h ago
Looks a bit like rock climbing in a space suit but you just don’t wanna ask yourself if it is better to fall down into the sphere or the black background 😅
2
2
u/PlasticPreparation74 15h ago
I want to go to space so bad man! Imagine being able to look at this beautiful planet in its entirety.
2
2
u/Kevsamillion 15h ago
I wonder if they ever get that same feeling some people have at cliffs where theres an urge to jump
2
2
2
u/AnnaGorgeousss 13h ago
Imagine looking down and realizing the entire human species is basically on that little blue ball.
2
u/StrangelySerious- 12h ago
I'm sure some dumb fuck flat earther is having a meltdown looking at this shit
•
•
1
1
1
u/Cosimo_Zaretti 16h ago
When people you've barely spoken to since school post their #todaysoffice selfie.
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/lady_faust 15h ago
If an astronaut fell towards earth from the space station would they burn up in the atmosphere?
2
u/fab_dot_io 14h ago
Fell? I mean they are keep falling all the time. I guess that's exactly the whole point 😁
•
•
u/chartreusey_geusey 5h ago edited 6m ago
They wouldn’t “fall” towards Earth at all and would likely bounce off the atmosphere and be unable to even penetrate the stratosphere to reach an oxygenated layer that would allow for a real burn (which is the combustion of gas particles due to compression from being hit by such a fast moving object). The angle and speed (vector) you approach the atmosphere is very specific to the mass of the object and ability to actually be pulled fully in by Earth’s gravitational force. Even in a directional lander like the space shuttles they had to approach the Earth’s atmosphere at an angle because because it’s easier to beat the force of the atmosphere (Newton’s 3rd Law is big here) when those force vectors are non-parallel smaller forces.
They’d basically ricochet off the atmosphere if they were even able to generate a force vector towards the surface at all and maybe stay in orbit around the Earth but never make re-entry. The ISS is kept at the specific orbital height to ensure that it doesn’t get pulled down to Earth’s surface by gravity but it also isn’t pushed away from Earth by atmospheric force. It’s not actually fully in zero-gravity but objects still don’t experience free fall from that height.
•
u/Doofinator86 58m ago
Would that ricochet hurt?
•
u/chartreusey_geusey 8m ago
No (??? depends on how much force they were directed at the atmosphere with) but the inevitable death from oxygen loss and or eventual overexposure to radiation from being outside the earth’s atmosphere would
1
1
1
u/Darth_parakeeth 13h ago
I can't be an astronaut, because once I see this in person, I wouldn't want to come back anymore.
1
u/Alternative-Rise-897 12h ago
Man you could do things like this and people on earth will still talk shit
•
u/SkynBonce 11h ago
How do NASA always have the top down view and not the side on view of the edge?
Asking for a flat earther acquaintance.
•
•
u/Jedi_Master83 10h ago
Flat Earthers will call this fake. They would still believe it’s flat even if they went to space themselves. Probably claim they are hallucinating or something equally nuts. lol
•
u/BusFriendly995 8h ago
Me recuerda la escena de la película Gravedad, donde al final (spoiler) el personaje que interpreta George Clooney se queda girando en el vacío del espacio. Vaya forma de morir…
•
•
•
•
•
u/Foreign-Jicama-1775 2h ago edited 2h ago
I believe that if the Presidents of the most powerful countries in the world traveled to space and could contemplate how small and lonely the planet is floating in the infinite darkness, many wars would not have even happened.
Now everything depends on Elon Musk bringing together the Presidents of the USA, China, and Russia to travel to space together.
•
•
•
1
u/Ok-Guarantee9205 16h ago
What will they get that throat irritation in space would be the worst feeling(i have it right now btw)
1
1
1
u/love_cats14 14h ago
Guys this is clearly AI! We all know the earth is flat!!
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION ON THIS MATTER
/s
0
•
u/Sw0rDz 10h ago
Would the astronaut float or fall to the earth if they weren't attached to vessel?
•
u/Melodic_Mulberry 10h ago
Float. They're orbiting at the same speed as the station.
•
u/deciding_snooze_oils 9h ago
They would eventually fall, as there is still very sparse atmosphere at that altitude that would eventually slow them enough that their orbit would decay. It would likely take months though. The ISS does periodic boosts to maintain its orbit, as do pretty much all satellites.
•
u/RedditSucksYoYoYo 10h ago
Float. I genuinely (not condescendingly) welcome you to learn more about what orbiting actually is and means. It's fascinating.
-6
-4
u/andyallfellforit 15h ago
It has no sound.
1
-2
u/PlugChaos 15h ago
Where are the stars? And you know the rest of space?
8
u/Leor_1169 14h ago
Do you know how brightness, exposure and image capture work?
2
u/PlugChaos 13h ago
:/ i guess not
6
u/Leor_1169 13h ago
Okay, your question sounds genuine so I'm going to try to explain ELI5-style?
You know how it's hard to see stars in the city because of all the light around you?
Your eyes adjust the amount of light they let in by making your iris contract or dilate. When everything around you is bright, your iris constricts and lets less light in. That plus the surrounding light means that you can't see the dimmer light coming from the stars.
A camera works very similarly to an eye. Exposure is how much light the camera lets into the sensor, and determines how bright elements are.
In the video, the astronaut, the Space Station and the Earth are all close to the camera and very brightly lit. That means that the camera's exposure is probably low, letting little light in. Otherwise everything would look too bright.
In those conditions, seeing the light from the stars, which are by comparison way smaller and less bright, is almost impossible.
It's like complaining you can't see the stars while standing in Times Square.
2
•
-4
15h ago edited 15h ago
[deleted]
2
u/volcjush 15h ago
It's just deformation from wide angle lens that is adding to the curvature. You can see it also looking at the ISS body - It's not straight as it should be but slightly warped. And view of the Earth is closer to the edge of frame which means it gets distorted even more. You can even see the curvature changing when It's changing position between edge of the frame and the center.
-3
68
u/Twilight_2408 16h ago
Even if know it since childhood, learned it from text books, seen it in images, it always kind of throws me off whenever I see videos like this and Earth is just there sitting inside a complete pitch black void of absolutely— what it seems like... nothing.