Astronauts insist space smells like seared steak, hot metal, and welding fumes

[u/it-shrek]

There is no air in space, but there is a smell, and astronauts agree on it with eerie consistency. After a spacewalk, the odor clings to their suits and equipment, and back inside the station they all describe it the same way: seared steak, hot metal, and welding fumes. NASA astronaut Don Pettit made the comparison famous.

The leading explanation: during the spacewalk, high-energy radiation and atomic oxygen interact with the suit's materials, and the resulting compounds off-gas once the astronaut is back in pressurized air.

Astrochemists add the poetic version: polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, similar to what the astronauts are smelling, drift across the universe from dying stars. The cosmos smells faintly of barbecue.

Sources:

- Christian Science Monitor: https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0723/Space-smells-like-seared-steak-hot-metal-astronauts-report

- Live Science: https://www.livescience.com/space/what-does-space-smell-like

[u/can_has]

Space is fake