You're out for a routine spacewalk.
Suddenly, your helmet comes loose.
But instead of suffocating,
you breathe in fresh cosmic air.
This is WHAT IF,
and here’s what would happen
if outer space was breathable.
The atmosphere you breathe here on Earth
consists of 78% nitrogen,
21% oxygen
and trace amounts of other gases.
It’s that molecular oxygen
that is essential for life.
Molecular oxygen is rare
beyond the 10,000 km (6,200 mi)
that the atmosphere extends
above the Earth’s surface.
In space, oxygen atoms bind with space dust.
They react with hydrogen atoms and create
water ice instead of molecular oxygen.
But what if we could find breathable air
all the way to the edges of the heliosphere?
That’s the boundary where the Sun’s gravity
is no longer as strong
as that of other stars.
Would an expansive atmosphere mean
you could travel anywhere in space
and breathe like you do here on Earth?
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Besides that surprising breath of fresh air,
there would be some other big changes
you’d hear of.
You’d now be able to listen to the Sun
and the other planets.
In the vacuum of space, sound can’t travel.
That’s because there are too few molecules
between the planets and the stars
to carry the vibrating sound waves.
But in this new space atmosphere,
those sound waves could travel great distances.
So you’d be able to hear everything.
Loud and clear.
The Sun is constantly vibrating at different frequencies.
It would be so loud that it would seem deafening.
Even considering the great distance
between our star and the Earth’s surface,
it would still reach your ears
at a volume of 125 dB.
Imagine going about your daily routine
to a soundtrack similar to church bells.
Only it would be as loud as thousands of police sirens.
This would be annoying,
but it wouldn't be your biggest problem.
In the vacuum of space, there's no friction.
That means all the planets and moons
orbit the Sun without losing speed.
Or, at least, losing it very, very slowly.
But now, with outer space filled with air,
all the planets would be
slamming into air particles at very high speeds.
The Earth would experience
the same fate as the asteroids
that enter our planet's atmosphere.
The friction causes them to heat up and burn.
So with the Earth currently orbiting the Sun
at a velocity of 30 km/s (18.6 mi/s),
all that friction would leave us
with nothing more than scorched surfaces.
This would be far from the end of the chaos.
Eventually, the Moon would slow to a complete stop.
Then, Earth’s gravity would
pull the Moon closer,
and that would result in a devastating collision.
If you survived through the scorched Earth,
this crash would be the end for the whole planet.
It would tear the Earth apart.
The rest of the Solar System wouldn’t fare much better.
With so much air in it,
our Solar System could turn into a black hole.
This is because all this air would have mass.
And with the radius of the heliosphere
spanning 90 AU, that’s a lot of mass.
About five billion times more than the Sun itself.
So if the Sun’s gravitational pull
made all this mass compress toward it,
the Solar System would become increasingly dense.
If all that air compressed into a space about
80% of the Earth's diameter,
you'd witness the creation of a black hole.
I mean, if you were still alive at that point.
That's unlikely.
That black hole would be about
1,200 times more massive
than the supermassive black hole
in the middle of the Milky Way.
At this point, you and I would be long gone.
And it might be for the best,
because it looks like these two gravitational monsters
are about to collide.
But that's a story for another WHAT IF.