Talk:Scrapheap (episode)

So, uh, just so I don't make a scientific booboo, it, uh, IS kind of weird that the Autobots freeze up and die in the Arctic but not in space, right? Or is that a humidity thing? --ItsWalky 22:14, 18 February 2011 (EST)

It's vacuum, not humidity. To quote TV Tropes' "Space is Cold":

The reason is that heat transmission only occurs in three basic ways: convection (transferring heat into some other substance which then moves away), conduction (transferring heat into some other substance which stays put) and radiation (transferring heat as massless particles, usually light). Since empty space doesn't contain any "other substance", the first two don't work, and the third is much slower.

Down here on Earth, the main way we transfer heat is through convection, transferring our own body heat into the air around us. Since space is a near-perfect vacuum, this is right out. (This actually makes space a very good insulator; consider the vacuum flask. Cooling is actually the biggest difficulty in designing modern spacecraft.) The only way you can get colder is by transferring heat into another object (say, by applying your face to a handy asteroid) or by radiating it out into the vacuum. Heat exchange through radiation is vastly slower.

Heat radiates off very slowly in the vacuum of space. Hence, the reason why Megatron and other TFs can travel through space with little to no problems (so as long their vital fluid lines don't have gaping holes), but will freeze up when hit with enough cold here on Earth because there's pressure. In short, they're more likely to keel over from being cooked into stasis instead of turning into a mech-sicle. --Lonegamer78 22:35, 18 February 2011 (EST)