If a naked human body were released into space, would it decay?
482157
I guess it would explode because of the difference in pressure... but then again this is with a live human... not sure about the dead one.\n\nThis site might be of help:\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_adaptation_to_space
928537
not at all, the material weight is just taking different forms, a person is a composition of something already here, there is not heavier planet.\n\n:> peace\n.
471492
First, due to the extremely low pressure- 0 pascals - all of the liquids in your body have their boling/freezing points lowered to the same temperature; all of your exposed fluids will boil: tears on eyes, saliva, urine (depending on the person's ability to keep his or her cool). Then, the capillaries around and on your eyeballs and other mucous membranes would rupture, spraying boiling blood into space. After about 20 seconds the normal person would be unconcious, though NASA trains its astronauts to last a full minute. After about 3 minutes you would succumb to suffocation, and you body would drift to space, nearly perfectly preserved, until:\n-It finally reentered Earth's atmosphere (assuming you were in Earth's orbit), where it would vaporize; \n-It hit another space object, such as an asteroid; \n-It is pulled in by another planet. \nIt all really depends on your location.\n\nP.S. contrary to popular belief, you would NOT explode. Your body structure and skin tautness will prevent that; however, you will probably reach a very unsightly level of bloating.
368466
it would disappear... (as per the the current physiscs theory we have..)  it would go to the future :)
163886
It theory it would destroy the body... and the rest of the universe. In relaity it's simply impossible.\n\nAny object travelling at lightspeed has infinite mass. That in itself isn't a problem, except that to decelerate a mass in any way you need to apply equivalent energy in the opposite direction to overcome inertia. An infinite mass has infinite iniertia. So to decelerate and mass will need to apply infinite energy.\n\nI've read some really good speculation on what would happen when a FTL mas hits something. It seems to come down to two camps.\n\nThe first camp says that the bullet can't be slowed down because has infinite iniertia and thus will always continue on its way. But the body it strikes has to absorb some energy from somehwere if it is to remain stationary. Through some methaemetcial gobbledegook it's apparently possible to arrive at a solution that the bullet will pick up the body and accelerate it to the same speed to avoid the problem. That means that the clothes are also accelerated, and the ground under its feet etc. Instantly the whole universe attempts to accelerate to lightspeed, which means that evertyhing is at the same energy level: infinite. Equal energy levels,  no energy transfer possible, instaneous heat death. By by universe. We all cease to exist.\n\nThe other school suggests that the bullet can't help but be decelerated. Yes it has infinite intertia, but the body has some iniertia too, so any interaction has to result in some energy loss from the bullet. Some energy loss/infinite kinetic energy = infinite energy. The interaction requires more energy than the noverse contains. Once again, instant heat death.\n\nThe trouble is that massive objects can only achieve lightspeed in theory, so we can only speculate on what it would be like. But the math says that any attempt to slow it down will require more energy than the universe actually contains one way or the other. It's an impossibility but if it ever could happen the universe couldn't continue to exist, at least not in its current form.\n\nWorrying about what happens to the body is a minor detail. The body will die with the universe.
386163
we'd all DIE!!!\ni dont know!\nyou should go ask an astronomer
1018278
that would depend on the velocity of the craft, the velocity the at you were pushed out with respect to the velocity of the craft, and what near by celestial or terrestrial bodies were near, to influence your movement with their gravitational pull...  if you wre set outside a ship, with zero velocity, and left, out in deep space... you would remain essentially motionless... if the same were done to you near the earth, you wold fall to the earth.. if you were pushed out the side door of the space shuttle while it orbited... you would most likely orbit several time before your orbit decayed and you would have a incredibly painful reentry... as short as the pain might be...
1089869
All carbon based life would immediately cease. Since "no water at all" means our bodies as well, including our cellular structure, we would all just be dessicated husks.
410906
I just don't wanna imagine...it would be horrible..How 'd ya sh*t??? no gravity...gross
515380
Your body would be pulled in every direction, though not really "exploding", that's a pretty good approximation of what would happen. If that didn't happen & you had oxygen, you would freeze to death. Or you would die from radiation(which is what would happen with the spacesuit, making the moon landing a farce).\n\nSpace kills, man.
501972
No! That is dying on the outside. After that, your a cold and lifeless shell. \nI just takes a special kind of person to breath life back into the shell.\nThink about it.
337957
Pure oxygen, it would just explode. Very dangerous.
619335
well if it were in a medium where it is obstructed by external forces,it would continue till the 0 point and stop... but when unobstructed it would keep travelling.
861130
A person flushed into space would remain conscious for about ten seconds and die in about ninety seconds.  It's best if I quote from the "Bioastronautics Data Book" from NASA:\n\n"Some degree of consciousness will probably be retained for 9 to 11 seconds (see chapter 2 under Hypoxia). In rapid sequence thereafter, paralysis will be followed by generalized convulsions and paralysis once again. During this time, water vapor will form rapidly in the soft tissues and somewhat less rapidly in the venous blood. This evolution of water vapor will cause marked swelling of the body to perhaps twice its normal volume unless it is restrained by a pressure suit. (It has been demonstrated that a properly fitted elastic garment can entirely prevent ebullism at pressures as low as 15 mm Hg absolute [Webb, 1969, 1970].) Heart rate may rise initially, but will fall rapidly thereafter. Arterial blood pressure will also fall over a period of 30 to 60 seconds, while venous pressure rises due to distention of the venous system by gas and vapor. Venous pressure will meet or exceed arterial pressure within one minute. There will be virtually no effective circulation of blood. After an initial rush of gas from the lungs during decompression, gas and water vapor will continue to flow outward through the airways. This continual evaporation of water will cool the mouth and nose to near-freezing temperatures; the remainder of the body will also become cooled, but more slowly. \n\n"Cook and Bancroft (1966) reported occasional deaths of animals due to fibrillation of the heart during the first minute of exposure to near vacuum conditions. Ordinarily, however, survival was the rule if recompression occurred within about 90 seconds. ... Once heart action ceased, death was inevitable, despite attempts at resuscitation...."\n\nNOT FUN would be my summation.  It bears mention that there are examples of people who have been exposed to vacuum and recovered with virtuall no ill effects and people who have died because they were exposed to vacuum.  They tend to fall very well within the guidelines laid down above.  For more information and accounts, follow the link.\n\nOf course, if you're just asking how long it's possible to live in a space station, then the answer is indefinitely.  The current record-holder for a space stay is Valeri Polyakov who stayed in orbit for 14 months.  It was only staying on Earth afterward that was the hard part.
818887
Will be a while before that body falls by gravity
703223
There is no oxygen in space, so you couldn't light a match. I bet if you could though, it would burn in a sphere.
656787
A newly dead human being, or any other animal, will sink when placed in water.  After the gases of decomposition build up in the chest and abdomen, however, the body will inflate, rise like a hydrogen-filled balloon, and pop to the surface, sometimes dragging with it surprisingly heavy weights that a murderer might have thought sufficient to keep it down.   With the passage of time and further decomposition, however, the body cavities eventually rupture, the gas escapes, and the corpse goes down again, this time for good.\n\nThere is one notable exception:  sometimes, due to air caught in the clothing, a body will stay on the surface for several hours before sinking.