Yet the edge of space – or the point where we consider spacecraft and astronauts to have entered space, known as the Von Karman Line – is only 62 miles (100 kilometers) above sea level.
Where does space begin? For purposes of spaceflight some would say at the Karman line, currently defined as an altitude of 100 kilometers (60 miles). Others might place a line 80 kilometers (50 miles) above Earth's mean sea level.
Farthest away
In April 1970, the crew of NASA's Apollo 13 mission swung around the far side of the moon at an altitude of 158 miles (254 km), putting them 248,655 miles (400,171 km) away from Earth. It's the farthest our species has ever been from our home planet.
Right above you is the sky – or as scientists would call it, the atmosphere. It extends about 20 miles (32 kilometers) above the Earth. Floating around the atmosphere is a mixture of molecules – tiny bits of air so small you take in billions of them every time you breathe. Above the atmosphere is space.
The final layer of Earth's atmosphere, where it gradually gives way to outer space, is the exosphere. This layer extends from around 440 miles above Earth to nearly 6,200 miles. The atmosphere in the exosphere is incredibly thin and no longer behaves like normal gas.
Any spacecraft traveling through it wouldn't notice a thing or be slowed by drag. It does mean, however, that humankind has yet to leave the Earth's atmosphere. The moon, the farthest point ever reached by astronauts, orbits well within the geocorona. All of this challenges the way we see our planet's borders.
One thing's for sure: the Universe does not have an edge. There's no physical boundary – no wall, no border, no fence around the edges of the cosmos. This doesn't necessarily mean that the Universe is infinitely large though.
The trite answer is that both space and time were created at the big bang about 14 billion years ago, so there is nothing beyond the universe. However, much of the universe exists beyond the observable universe, which is maybe about 90 billion light years across.
Outer space has a baseline temperature of 2.7 Kelvin, minus 453.8 degrees Fahrenheit or minus 270.45 degrees Celsius, according to LiveScience.
A Mars-sized planet that struck Earth 4.5 billion years ago and gave birth to the moon may have left two giant pieces of itself deep in Earth's mantle, a new study suggests. Scientists have long agreed on the existence of the planet, called Theia, and its role in creating the moon.
The first astronaut to float away from the safety of their ship without a tether was Bruce McCandless, who reached 320 feet away from the Challenger space shuttle on February 7, 1984.
Key Takeaways: Would Water Boil or Freeze in Space? Water immediately boils in space or any vacuum. Space does not have a temperature because temperature is a measure of molecule movement.
As of Jun 11, 2023, the average annual pay for a Nasa Astronaut in the United States is $46,585 a year. Just in case you need a simple salary calculator, that works out to be approximately $22.40 an hour.
The difference isn't noticeable though — after spending six months on the ISS, astronauts have aged about 0.005 seconds less than the rest of us.
Previous research has shown that spending time in space causes bone density loss, immune dysfunction, cardiovascular issues such as stiffening of arteries, and loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength in both humans and rodent models. These changes resemble aging in people age on Earth, but happen more quickly.
But to earn their astronaut wings, high-flying civilians will have to make it past the so-called Kármán line. This boundary sits some 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth's surface, and it's generally accepted as the place where Earth ends and outer space begins.
We can't smell space directly, because our noses don't work in a vacuum. But astronauts aboard the ISS have reported that they notice a metallic aroma – like the smell of welding fumes – on the surface of their spacesuits once the airlock has re-pressurised.
At most, an astronaut without a suit would last about 15 seconds before losing conciousness from lack of oxygen. (That's how long it would take the body to use up the oxygen left in the blood.)
Instead, you would face another gruesome fate first: your blood, your bile, your eyeballs –will boil furiously, since the low pressure of the vacuum massively reduces the boiling point of water.
Because space isn't curved they will never meet or drift away from each other. A flat universe could be infinite: imagine a 2D piece of paper that stretches out forever. But it could also be finite: imagine taking a piece of paper, making a cylinder and joining the ends to make a torus (doughnut) shape.
Practically, we cannot even imagine thinking of the end of space. It is a void where the multiverses lie. Our universe alone is expanding in every direction and covering billions of kilometres within seconds. There is infinite space where such universes roam and there is actually no end.
Scientists now consider it unlikely the universe has an end – a region where the galaxies stop or where there would be a barrier of some kind marking the end of space.
The Boötes Void (/boʊˈoʊtiːz/ boh-OH-teez) (colloquially referred to as the Great Nothing) is an approximately spherical region of space found in the vicinity of the constellation Boötes, containing very few galaxies, hence its name. It is enormous, with a radius of 62 megaparsecs.
As a universe, a vast collection of animate and inanimate objects, time is infinite. Even if there was a beginning, and there might be a big bang end, it won't really be an end. The energy left behind will become something else; the end will be a beginning.
Even though certain features of the universe seem to require the existence of a multiverse, nothing has been directly observed that suggests it actually exists. So far, the evidence supporting the idea of a multiverse is purely theoretical, and in some cases, philosophical.