History Main / ExplosionsInSpace

** Nobody's perfect, though: Torpedoes still give a great planar shockwave.

* In the HonorHarrington series, ships that have their fusion bottle fail just have a "single, eye-searing flash," and then are gone.

* To purposely showcase the fallacy of [[SpaceIsNoisy space is just like Earth]] in [[StarTrek Star Trek 2009]]; one of the crew members is sucked out of the ship into space during the initial battle between The Federation Starship Kelvin and Captain Nero's, becoming silent once the air is expelled.

* ''StarFox'' games do this as well, with ships mostly breaking apart after being hit or the classic "BOMB" item going in a perfect sphere.

* Though the visual isn't discussed explosions in ''{{GURPS}}'' lose about half of their power when exploded in space due to lack of atmosphere.

* Partially {{Averted}} in ''Star Wars'', especially Episode 4 with the attack on the original Death Star. There were multiple cases where the attacking fighters got blown up and the explosion and debris continued on the ships original course and speed.[[hottip:*:This may be a case of an EnforcedTrope, at least for the original theatrical versions, given that the original explosions were shot using actual pyrotechnic models.]] The Death Star explosions still got {{Planar Shockwave}}s, however, and all the explosions still went "boom."

* Partially {{Averted}} in ''Star Wars'', especially Episode 4 with the attack on the original Death Star. There were multiple cases where the attacking fighters got blown up and the explosion and debris continued on the ships original course and speed. The Death Star explosions still got {{Planar Shockwave}}s, however, and all the explosions still went "boom."

** This is more of a subversion, since the mothership is described as having a mass and volume comparable with a small moon, and filled with an atmosphere of some sort (since an invasion staging area is shown).

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* ''TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'' has shown space explosions twice so far. The first one was accompanied by the UnSoundEffect [[http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20060812.html "SILENT KABOOM!"]] The second one quickly morphed into a [[http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20101207.html fireworks display,]] with the onlookers screams changing to "Oooh! Ahhh!"

* ''TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'' has shown space explosions twice so far. The first one was accompanied by the UnSoundEffect [[http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20060812.html "SILENT KABOOM!"]] The second one quickly morphed into a [[http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20101207.html fireworks display,]] with the onlookers screams changing to "Oooh! Ahhh!"b

* Back in the day the two Superpowers conducted several series of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_altitude_nuclear_explosion high altitude nuclear explosions]] that resulted in fireballs being as cool if not cooler than anything Hollywood could produce well into the age of CGI. Just another example of something that's just as easy to get wrong as right.
** It should be noted that these explosions were still in the atmosphere, just very high up.
*** Yeah, the atmosphere really doesn't have an upper bound. The conventional definition of the edge of space is the altitude at which solar radiation has a larger influence over atoms/molecules than Earth's gravity does, but really the atmosphere just thins out and fades, reaching zero asymptotically.
**** Correct to a point, but there IS a point where the atmosphere ends. It's just not really possible to DEFINE it. We can easily state when you're definitely outside of it, but there's no way to tell how long ago you left. For example, the atmosphere doesn't reach to Mars. Not a hope. But there's no specific way to say "this is where we pass out of the atmosphere and into vacuum".

* In ''{{Firefly}}'', damaged ships simply break up, the broken parts drifting in the trajectory of the ship.

In reality, space has no air to transfer the explosive energy to. Thus, explosions would have an initial brilliant flash, and the resulting ''spherical'' fireball and debris would travel away from the point of explosion far too fast for the eye to see. The fireball would become transparent a few microseconds after the explosion due to cooling by radiation.

* In ''SilentRunning'', nuclear explosions in space are just circular flashes that fade away. This is the sort of thing a modern movie probably wouldn't do, in the name of "better FX".

Hollywood is [[TheyJustDidntCare not interested]] in teaching or even researching physics, and generally doesn't even depict normal explosions on Earth accurately, so it's no surprise that explosions in space rely on RuleOfCool rather than science. In the movies, explosions in space work pretty much the same way explosions on Earth would (or rather the way film-makers ''imagine'' they would, with lots of red flames and smoke).

*** Some were higher than where the Space Shuttle orbits. That counts as space.
* One word: supernova.
** More than one word... No. Which is to say that current theory indicates that supernovae probably don't occur in a truly spherical manner at all. Stars spin, for one thing, and for another the final trigger event is quite possibly localized away from the center of the star. This nicely accounts for the innumerable irregular nebulae to a greater degree than would irregularity in the medium.
*** Um...but it's still an explosion. And it's still in space, even if it doesn't look like [[StarWars the Death Star blowing up]].

*** [[CompletelyMissingThePoint It's still one word, albeit a compound word]]. This is was something we learned in grammar school.
**** Your grammar school is was undoubtedly very proud.

*** It's still one word, albeit a compound word. This is was something we learned in grammar school.