how hot a temp can space handle?

[tommo123]

or does it not matter? i imagine a supernova gets pretty hot but what if you could heat something to ridiculous highs? like trillions centigrade.

would something weird happen or not?

 

[Bubbleawsome]

I have no idea, but I am enjoying thinking of what will result from this thread.

 

[CycloWizard]

It depends on what you're heating to those temperatures: temperature is essentially a measure of energy in matter, so the result will depend on the type(s) of matter involved as well as prevailing conditions of the surrounding matter.

 

[DrPizza]

One Planck time after the big bang, it's proposed that the universe's temperature was the Planck temperature - the hottest temperature therefore that's possible (10^32K). IIRC, string theory predicts a slightly lower maximum temperature possible (an order or two of magnitude).

Interestingly enough, CERN's magnets operate at a temperature below that of outer space. But, the collisions they've produced are at temperatures 100,000 or more than the temperatures at the Sun's core. I think the current record for CERN is something like 6 trillion degrees K, though that's probably been broken again by them.

In space, I think quasars are the hottest, or close to it. 10^6 Kelvin? I suppose it might be a higher temperature during a supernova, or a gamma ray burst from something such as a couple neutron stars colliding, though those events are short lived.

 

[intx13]

I find temperature in space to be a tricky thing to imagine. To me, temperature means "will I feel hot and sticky or cold and shivery?" That's a subjective feeling that comes from my body's physiological response to internal temperature.

When DrPizza says that a quasar can get up to 10^6 K, should I consider that hot? It certainly would feel hot if that was my body's internal temperature! (At least for a very brief moment before my bones sublimated...) But quasars don't feel. Temperature is just a measure of energy.

One way to compare might be to imagine that the thermal energy from that quasar replaced the sun, and imagine the effect that might have on the earth. Maybe somebody can do some back-of-the-envelope math and give us an idea. But personally, without some way to bring an abstract "temperature" to bear on human life, I find it really tough to imagine heat in space in any meaningful way.

 

[MrDudeMan]

I find temperature in space to be a tricky thing to imagine. To me, temperature means "will I feel hot and sticky or cold and shivery?" That's a subjective feeling that comes from my body's physiological response to internal temperature.

When DrPizza says that a quasar can get up to 10^6 K, should I consider that hot? It certainly would feel hot if that was my body's internal temperature! (At least for a very brief moment before my bones sublimated...) But quasars don't feel. Temperature is just a measure of energy.

One way to compare might be to imagine that the thermal energy from that quasar replaced the sun, and imagine the effect that might have on the earth. Maybe somebody can do some back-of-the-envelope math and give us an idea. But personally, without some way to bring an abstract "temperature" to bear on human life, I find it really tough to imagine heat in space in any meaningful way.

Hot and cold are adjectives used by humans to assign meaning to common temperatures on earth. Temperature itself has no human dependency. You can directly measure and calculate it with absolutely no need to feel anything. Temperature in space is just like temperature on earth. 10^6K is hot to a human regardless of where it is, so you don't need to try to theorize how it would feel.

Also, sweating and shivering are responses to ambient, not internal, temperatures. Your body is regulated, so really it's the differential that causes the physiological response with your internal temperature being essentially constant. With that said, I really have no idea what you were trying to say because none of it made any sense.

 

[intx13]

Hot and cold are adjectives used by humans to assign meaning to common temperatures on earth. Temperature itself has no human dependency. You can directly measure and calculate it with absolutely no need to feel anything. Temperature in space is just like temperature on earth. 10^6K is hot to a human regardless of where it is, so you don't need to try to theorize how it would feel.

Also, sweating and shivering are responses to ambient, not internal, temperatures. Your body is regulated, so really it's the differential that causes the physiological response with your internal temperature being essentially constant. With that said, I really have no idea what you were trying to say because none of it made any sense.

Don't be obtuse. The OP's question reflected a lack of understanding of the meaning of temperature. My comment addressed why humans often have trouble imagining temperature in space; we're wired to think of temperature as some object's response (such as our body), not as an abstract measure of energy.

If the OP's question had been "what interstellar body has the highest thermal energy?" I wouldn't have replied as such. But in my experience, discussions of temperature in space inevitably devolve into "would I feel hot or cold if I was in space without a spacesuit?".

 

[Biftheunderstudy]

Unfortunately, there are a few definitions of temperature. If we go by the more layman definition, this corresponds to the something like the average kinetic energy of a particle. A more rigorous definition uses the entropy, but I digress.

If we stick to the normal definition, temperatures can get quite high. Stars get VERY hot in their cores, the heavier the element they are trying to fuse, the hotter it needs to be. Silicon burning for instance requires around 10^9K (from wiki).

Outside of stars, things get a bit...weird..

The density is so low, that the average kinetic energy definition really doesn't make sense anymore (this is why LHC produces such rediculous "temperatures"). The gas that surrounds a cluster of galaxies for instance is so hot that it's emitting x-rays (10^6 or 10^7 K)

Cosmology tells us that the temperature decreases with time since the big bang, which implies the ludicrous temperatures at the big bang.

Finally, negative temperature (on the Kelvin scale) is a thing...sort of...it's complicated.

 

[MrDudeMan]

Don't be obtuse. The OP's question reflected a lack of understanding of the meaning of temperature. My comment addressed why humans often have trouble imagining temperature in space; we're wired to think of temperature as some object's response (such as our body), not as an abstract measure of energy.

If the OP's question had been "what interstellar body has the highest thermal energy?" I wouldn't have replied as such. But in my experience, discussions of temperature in space inevitably devolve into "would I feel hot or cold if I was in space without a spacesuit?".

I'm not being obtuse. Your post was wrong in several areas, off topic, and not helpful for the intended topic. The OP didn't ask any questions about space suits or our ability to perceive hot and cold. He asked if there was an upper limit to temperature in space - as in the physical limitations of the universe - which is a completely different question. Whether or not you are shivering because the ambient temperature is low has nothing to do with heat in outer space.

 

[Puppies04]

or does it not matter? i imagine a supernova gets pretty hot but what if you could heat something to ridiculous highs? like trillions centigrade.

would something weird happen or not?

What "weird" stuff are you expecting to happen? Are you imagining space melting or something?

 

[fralexandr]

http://what-if.xkcd.com/35/
how weird do you want it?

 

[Ayah]

trillions of centigrade = QGP, which we can generate. Beyond that is purely theoretical.

I dunno what "weird" would mean though.

 

[SecurityTheatre]

http://what-if.xkcd.com/35/
how weird do you want it?

XKCD What If is so much win.

 

[Bubbleawsome]

http://what-if.xkcd.com/35/
how weird do you want it?

That is amazing. Thank you for that.

 

[Agent11]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_machine

At the beginning of 2006, the Z machine produced plasmas with announced temperatures in excess of 2 billion kelvins (2 GK, 2×109 K) or 3.6 billion °F, even reaching a peak at 3.7 GK or 6.6 billion °F.[29][30][31] It was achieved in part by replacing the tungsten wires with thicker steel wires. This temperature, which enables a 10% to 15% efficiency in converting electrical energy to soft x-rays, was much higher than anticipated (3 to 4 times the kinetic energy of the incoming wires on axis). The Guinness Book Of Records listed it as the highest human-achieved temperature[citation needed] (the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory has produced higher temperatures, but only within nuclear matter;[32] also the Large Hadron Collider has produced higher temperatures[33]). The origin of this extra energy still remains unexplained, but it has been theorized that small-scale MHD turbulence and viscous damping would convert magnetic energy into thermal energy of the ions, which then would transfer their energy to the electrons through collisions.[30][31]

 

[watdahel]

Space can handle a lot of temperature.