Have you ever wondered what outer space smells like? I am guessing you haven't. That's because most of us generally only talk about how it looks out there. We are conditioned to believe from our childhood that space is mostly vacuum and of course, that means no air.
So, one wouldn't expect to hear a sound or smell anything in space. However, astronauts who have gone up to the International Space Station and have gone on "spacewalks" have stated that there might be a distinct and "weird" smell to space.
What usually happens is when astronauts return to the inside of the ISS after a spacewalk and remove their spacesuits, they can often smell some peculiar smells from their suits. Different astronauts have different suggestions about what it smells like.
Astronauts have said, it smells like seared steak, hot metal, gunpowder, burnt meat, raspberry, and more. But all of them agree that it is a weird and peculiar smell. So, it could be that outer space really does have a smell. And now, you can experience it too!
Eau de Space
Omega Ingredients is a flavors company for the food and beverage industry that has now created a fragrance that smells like space! And the fragrance has been named "Eau de Space".
The company has a Kickstarter campaign to bring it to production which has already raised more than $150,000 while its goal was just $2000. I guess people do really want to know what space smells like!
In 2008, NASA had contacted Omega's founder Steve Pearce to create a fragrance that smells like space. This was so that the astronauts can be given an idea of the smell and what to expect. They basically wanted to eliminate any surprises for the astronauts.
Now, the company says it has nailed down the fragrance. Pearce says that the best description he can come up with is that it smells like "a rather pleasant sweet metallic sensation".
What do you think of the idea? Would you be interested in buying the fragrance if it was available? I, for one, would LOVE to know what space smells like. I like the idea of a sweet metallic smell.
Image Credits: Omega Ingredients
I'm so curious to know what space smell like! This thing reminds me my childhood when my dreams was to be an astronaut ^_^
Same here! I would love to know if and how it smells up there. I think A LOT of us had that dream :)
They need to do a good experiment, a metallic smell could be from the ship radiation heating or from their suits heating up from the radiation. Now if they were to weigh a big cotton ball and a glass container to put the cotton ball in, then tie a string around the cotton ball and send it a good distance away from the ship, let it sit and steep so to speak in space for ten to twenty minutes, then reel it back in and place in the glass container, with minimal contact, and see what grows on the cotton ball.
For something to give off odor it pretty much has to have some mass even if very small on the atomic level. So if space really does have an odor, then space is not really empty and perhaps this solves the issue of the missing mass.
Yes, exactly! They need to conduct a scientific experiment like the one you suggested (or something else) to determine whether space really has a smell. Again, as you said, for something to give off an odor, it needs to have a mass. So, this simple experiment could solve one of the biggest mysteries in Physics! I wonder why they haven't done this already.
They may have not thought of it, I mean before the story there, I never wondered what space smelled like.
Yeah might be...