Outer Space has a Smell 274
repapetilto writes "ISS Science Officer Don Pettit reports in his journal that outer space gives off a smell best described as "a rather pleasant sweet metallic sensation." Kind of odd considering smell is supposed to be due to volatilized chemical compounds."
Re:Take a big wiff (Score:4, Informative)
Professor Farnsworth was right! (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.gotfuturama.com/Information/Encyc-21-SmellOScope/ [gotfuturama.com]
Re:Implied Lisa? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Take a big wiff (Score:3, Informative)
You'd even have a few seconds of useful consciousness to take a whiff and stick your head back in!
A more down to earth answer... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sounds Like Ozone (Score:3, Informative)
I also arc-weld, and do all sorts of other welding, and I think the sweet smell you noticed is much more likely vaporization of the flux, filler rod, and base material, surface contaminants (or any combination of the above) than it is to be of ozone, because those are produced in much higher quantities than ozone, and here's why: One of the main purposes the flux on the rod serves is to banish oxygen and other atmospheric gasses from the arc area when it vaporizes, creating a gaseous shield. If you were getting enough oxygen into the arc to produce a large quantity of ozone, something was way, way, WAY wrong, because it's also letting a huge amount of nitrogen and CO2 into the mix, and your welds would be so brittle it would not be funny.
From my understanding, ozone is produced while SMAW welding, but only in peripheral amounts, and as I understand it, the chief cause of this is the high intensity ultraviolet light busting up the oxygen molecules the surrounding atmosphere. Of course, if anyone knows more about this, I'm willing to be enlightened.
Re:Implied Lisa? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Implied Lisa? (Score:3, Informative)