565
The sun is a deadly laser...
(thelemmy.club)
cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/44126927
Goldilocks
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this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2026
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If you could somehow prevent yourself from dying due to lack of pressure, without blocking heat, you would radiate about 650W more than you generate.
That's using the Stefan Boltzmann law, at normal body temp, perfect blackbody and 1.5m2 of skin. (~ 750 Watt) And then assuming 2000kcal a day (~100W)
You'd cool down pretty quickly.
So how long do I have? Also, if you guys could hurry with the answer...?
RIP
I can't really find a good number for how cold you can get and not die, so let's say 20 degrees. That gives 16 degrees to lose.
Meat has a specific heat of about 3.5kJ per kilo per degree, so say you weigh 70kg, that's about 4 million joules to lose before you die.
At 650 joules per second, you've got slightly over 10 minutes. Of course, shivering will burn more calories and stuff, and the panic of impending death will likely stretch it a few more.
I didn't include clothes, because then the maths would make me cry.
Your skin isn't at core temp tho, so the loss rate should be lower I think
At that point, you'll have to calculate the heat transport of the human body, and answer questions like "how long can a person live with frozen skin" and other fun questions I'm not equipped to answer.
4,000,000/650/60=102.57 minutes
But that's for a resting body, a shivering one would lose only like 200j/s
Also, you forgot one important aspect, if you're getting bathed by the sun and spinning, you're constantly getting heated up.
Good to know! I didn't realize humans would radiate heat so much, I wrongly assumed it was more convective and relied on atmosphere