could a piece of Swiss cheese survive in space?

Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 13:17:30 GMT, "Knot Fields"
wrote:


I am a student in high school. For our monthly topics, this time I choose
the aforementioned question. The cheese would be in the form of a cube,
about 3" per side. Assume it is launched into space by a rocket and exposed
to space at 1000 miles above Earth. Would this piece of cheese survive?
Why or why not and what will happen to it? I thought this was a silly
question to pick at first, but now I see that it's starting to get
complicated. Any help would be appreciated or at least some pointers in the
right direction.


If you exposed it suddenly to space, it would probably explode as all the
internal bubbles of trapped air expanded. Then you would have a cloud of cheese
pieces drifting apart. Within a few minutes the water would all evaporate away,
leaving dried cheese bits. Over hours or days the less volatile fluids,
primarily oils I guess, would also evaporate away. In short, you'd end up with
something rather like any number of cheesy junk food products g.

As the cloud of cheesy bits orbit the earth, they will alternately cycle between
about room temperature and very cold, with the resulting expansion and
contraction possibly causing more fragmentation. Other than that, I'd expect the
orbiting cheese to be fairly stable at this point. At a height of a thousand
miles they should orbit for many years before re-entering as cheesy meteors.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com



Chris, I'm going to follow up your post on the grounds that the block of
cheese would likely NOT be decompressivly exposed to space, hence likely
as not, fail to explode.

My mental visualization has the block of cheese get frosty as it
undergoes extensive freezer burn. It will loose mass as it looses
volitals and shrink in overall size. Likely it will become hard as rock
over time, not because of the soft cheese freezing but also due to
separation and loss of the oils in the cheese.

Water will be the second to leave, after trapped atmosphere and other
gasses. The oils may well quite a while.


TBerk

"T" wrote in message
om...
Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 13:17:30 GMT, "Knot Fields"

wrote:


I am a student in high school. For our monthly topics, this time I
choose
the aforementioned question. The cheese would be in the form of a
cube,
about 3" per side. Assume it is launched into space by a rocket and
exposed
to space at 1000 miles above Earth. Would this piece of cheese
survive?
Why or why not and what will happen to it? I thought this was a silly
question to pick at first, but now I see that it's starting to get
complicated. Any help would be appreciated or at least some pointers
in the
right direction.


If you exposed it suddenly to space, it would probably explode as all
the
internal bubbles of trapped air expanded. Then you would have a cloud
of cheese
pieces drifting apart. Within a few minutes the water would all
evaporate away,
leaving dried cheese bits. Over hours or days the less volatile
fluids,
primarily oils I guess, would also evaporate away. In short, you'd end
up with
something rather like any number of cheesy junk food products g.

As the cloud of cheesy bits orbit the earth, they will alternately
cycle between
about room temperature and very cold, with the resulting expansion and
contraction possibly causing more fragmentation. Other than that, I'd
expect the
orbiting cheese to be fairly stable at this point. At a height of a
thousand
miles they should orbit for many years before re-entering as cheesy
meteors.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com



Chris, I'm going to follow up your post on the grounds that the block of
cheese would likely NOT be decompressivly exposed to space, hence likely
as not, fail to explode.

My mental visualization has the block of cheese get frosty as it
undergoes extensive freezer burn. It will loose mass as it looses
volitals and shrink in overall size. Likely it will become hard as rock
over time, not because of the soft cheese freezing but also due to
separation and loss of the oils in the cheese.

Water will be the second to leave, after trapped atmosphere and other
gasses. The oils may well quite a while.


TBerk

The hell with the cheese.

I'll go for the Heitz Martha's, and soon the rest won't matter...

--
Jan Owen

To reach me directly, remove the Z, if one appears in my e-mail address...
Latitude: 33.662
Longitude: -112.3272

On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 01:40:39 GMT, T wrote:

Chris, I'm going to follow up your post on the grounds that the block of
cheese would likely NOT be decompressivly exposed to space, hence likely
as not, fail to explode.

Probably true if the cheese isn't simply released directly into a
vacuum.

My mental visualization has the block of cheese get frosty as it
undergoes extensive freezer burn.

Why would it freeze? There's a better than even chance it will be in the
Sun. Now I could make a guess at the emissivity of Swiss cheese, and
apply the Stefan-Boltzmann equation to the cheese (another expression
that has probably never been used!), but even without doing so I still
have no doubt that the equilibrium temperature of a block of cheese
orbiting the Earth, in the sunlight, is well above freezing.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

It would be fitting if any impacts were in Wisconsin... edible
meteorites anyone? ;-)



Chris L Peterson wrote:
At a height of a thousand
miles they should orbit for many years before re-entering as cheesy
meteors.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

It's still quite early, but I nominate this as a candidate for Post of
the Year

Agreed. Fun, succinct and actually accurate (is that allowed on saa?)

--marred only by Chris's persistence not to keep his posts less
than about 72-76 characters per line.

Well, no one (else) is perfect.

Clear Skies

Chuck Taylor
Do you observe the moon?
Try http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lunar-observing/

Are you interested in understanding optics?
Try http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ATM_Optics_Software/

************************************

Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.txt

Frozen Orbital Swiss-Cheez Space Cloud.....

MMMMmmmmmmmmmm.......


:-)


-G-


--
************************************************** ***************
G. W. Owen (Network Admin)
Electrical & Computer Engineering
University of Toronto , Canada

Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 01:40:39 GMT, T wrote:


Chris, I'm going to follow up your post on the grounds that the block of
cheese would likely NOT be decompressivly exposed to space, hence likely
as not, fail to explode.


Probably true if the cheese isn't simply released directly into a
vacuum.


My mental visualization has the block of cheese get frosty as it
undergoes extensive freezer burn.


Why would it freeze? There's a better than even chance it will be in the
Sun. Now I could make a guess at the emissivity of Swiss cheese, and
apply the Stefan-Boltzmann equation to the cheese (another expression
that has probably never been used!), but even without doing so I still
have no doubt that the equilibrium temperature of a block of cheese
orbiting the Earth, in the sunlight, is well above freezing.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson


K, I forgot about the heat of the Sun and tempering effect out
atmosphere provides.

The cheese would likely melt, if not burn, at least a mild scorching on
the surface. Increases the separations of the curds/whey type solids
from the oils and water content.


TBerk