Whats the black stuff in space?

Question

This is probably a stupid unanswerable question but I want to see if anyone has any theories about this.

Can someone explain to me anything about that black matter that makes up most of space? You know, the stuff that separates earth from the moon, the sun from mars, stars from other stars. Does it exist?

Also what happens if someone places their uncovered hand in it? If it has no chemical makeup then it shouldn't have a temperature and the hand should be fine right?

Answer 1

Space is black because it does not have enough molecules or matter to reflect sunlight. This does not mean that space is empty. Space is never completely devoid of matter. A pure vacuum of empty space has not even been produced on Earth in lab experiments.

The space between the Earth and Moon is often called a vacuum but this term refers to pressure and not what elements are in the space. At the very least, space contains many hydrogen atoms per square inch. It would also include dust leftover from creation of our Solar System, particles ejected from the Solar Wind of our Sun, and small micro-meteoroids left by comets as they slowly disintegrate on each pass around the Sun.    http://www.esa.int/esaKIDSen/SEMVY5WJD1E...

Interstellar space is filled with more compicated elements and molecules    http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedi...

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

Not much is known for sure about intergallactic space. We only have two probes which are just now reaching the edge of our Solar System environment. Wiki has this to say about intergallactic space:  Generally free of dust and debris, intergalactic space is very close to a total vacuum. Some theories put the average density of the Universe as the equivalent of one hydrogen atom per cubic meter. The density of the Universe, however, is clearly not uniform; it ranges from relatively high density in galaxies (including very high density in structures within galaxies, such as planets, stars, and black holes) to conditions in vast voids that have much lower density than the Universe's average. The temperature is only 2.73 Kelvin. NASA's COBE mission (Cosmic Background Explorer) measured the temperature as 2.725 +/- 0.002 K.

As far as your hand goes, space is never empty so it always has a temperature. At the very minimum, space would contain radiation called the Cosmic Microwave Radiation which is the heat leftover from the Big Bang 14 billion years ago. 3K = -270 degrees C = -454 degrees F. Your hand would not blow up or freeze instantly but I wouldn't recommend testing how long you could hold it there. If you were closer to a star, it would be warmer. Too close to a star, and your hand would burn to ash immediately at temperatures of 6,000 degrees F or hotter.

Answer 2

you hand is most definitely NOT made of thin glass, so while it isn't recommended in your Owner's Manual, you may try the "Stick your hand in a vacuum" experiment.

as to Dark Matter, here is a nice composite pic of some, its not a real photo, but an extrapolation from the gravitational lensing we see in the galaxies behind it.

Answer 3

The stuff IS space.  It's just that, space.  There's nothing in it, no matter, nothing.  It looks black because there is just no visible light passing through it.  There may be something called Dark Matter which we cannot see or detect but it would not occupy all of the space, only a very small fraction.

Your hand would explode do to the lack of pressure and it would freeze because space is incredibly cold.

Answer 4

Newtonian physics tells us that the "black stuff between" bodies in space is empty vacuum, and therefore all of the theories of gravity, motion, etc. should work accordingly. And they do, at least around "normal" sized stuff, like moons, planets and stars.

But Quantum mechanics has uncovered that the "vaccum" of space is acually anything but. There is actually, at the quantum level (which is much, much, much smaller than atoms!) little beasties that are constantly coming in and out of existence- negative particles (antimatter) as well as the stuff we know- matter or positive particles. So the black stuff in between is not empty at all, but it is black.

Dark matter may be a byproduct of this process, and could be imagined as an ocean surface- the "foam" on the wave crests would be the normal stuff- stars, planets. The "Water" under would be the bulk of the universe, dark matter.