Space question for astrophysicists.
Space is a vacuum so they say there is no sound. Since sound needs a medium like air to travel, would it get loud if you were floating in a cloud of oxygen or hydrogen, etc?
31-35, M
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Sound can pass through any gas or liquid, but how rapidly, far and easily depends on both the density of the cloud, the amplitude of the sound at source and its frequency.
Gas clouds floating freely in Space are extremely nebulous so the propagation of sound through them except perhaps at extremely low, perhaps sub-Hz frequencies, would be very unlikely indeed.
Assuming spherical spreading from a comparatively small source, as we might in Space or at half-depth in the middle of the ocean, the sound's intensity dies away as in inverse-square law, so does not go far before being very faint or lost entirely. Just as sound in air in our everyday lives, in fact, though more neatly.
The strange effect in space-fantasies like Star Trek, that an explosion in the distance shakes the star-ship and its crew, is completely wrong!
Gas clouds floating freely in Space are extremely nebulous so the propagation of sound through them except perhaps at extremely low, perhaps sub-Hz frequencies, would be very unlikely indeed.
Assuming spherical spreading from a comparatively small source, as we might in Space or at half-depth in the middle of the ocean, the sound's intensity dies away as in inverse-square law, so does not go far before being very faint or lost entirely. Just as sound in air in our everyday lives, in fact, though more neatly.
The strange effect in space-fantasies like Star Trek, that an explosion in the distance shakes the star-ship and its crew, is completely wrong!
"...so they say..." - No, it is. The propagation of sound waves is, in this sense, the exact opposite to EM waves (ex. light) in that the denser the medium the more effective it becomes. The answer to your question is "it depends", because what, exactly, do you have in mind here? Something like Earth's atmosphere?
Space is not a vacuum, otherwise it would pull everything apart, it's more of a void with objects within it.
GuyWithOpinions · 31-35, M
@NativePortlander1970 it does pull everything apart. Gravity pulls everything together. If there is a hole in your spaceship everything gets sucked out.