Tunnel Temperature

After her battle with the remaining engineer, Shaw is laying on the ground outside the lifeboat without a glove on her left hand prior to her conversation with David's head.

Well it could be either... You see -12 C is about -10F and -12F is about -11C So -11.5 C or -11.5 F are both about the same temperature

in the tunnel, they asked (because this water is not frozen?) if the temperature was -12 degrees celcius, (I think it's urine Martian)

This is definitely a good thread. That comment is made loud and clear and one can't help but think it is a clue but about what? It's in the script for a reason. What can depress the melting point of water? The water (it that is exactly what it is) is at -12°C a super cooled liquid. Now, simply adding sodium chloride depresses the freezing point of water (that's why we grit the roads in winter). Now road salting is only effective below -10°C and a salt-water mixture can remain liquid to -21°C. So, at -12°C, one can speculate that the water has a very high sodium chloride level or similar salt(electrolyte) level.

Did any viewers note the moon's surface temperature? I don't know how the tunnel/surface temperature plays a part in the overall scheme or theme of the movie but it is an element(no pun intended) in the storyline.

THere are some scenes at the end of the movie showing Shaw's hand exposed while she is talking ro David(I think) So that whopping temps is attention geting. The other reason I mention the tunnel temps was when Fifiled and Millurn are stranded inside the tummel. Janek says it is going to get cold and they should stay warm the best we can. I thought that was odd in that caves around here stay pretty much the same temp year around . It doesn;t make much difference(at least away from the entrance0 if the temp outsice is 110 or -10 degrees.

@ Indy The temp on landing was given as 2.724k. That's a whopping -270C. It didn't say what was at that temp. Normally you would be thinking outside temp.

Wow, less than 3 Kelvin? That's cold enough to liquify helium. I'll have to go watch the DVD to see what they said about that. As for Centigrade, of course measurement scales are things you get used to by growing up with them and nothing else makes sense, but Celsius aka Centigrade is easily defined. At normal atmospheric pressure, pure water freezes at 0, boils at 100. (Well, it's good enough for government work, some redefinition has happened in the meantime but the new values aren't far)

@Corpo It's not any of the crew saying that - sounds like a computer-generated voice. Pretty sure they're not talking about the outside temp but something else.

Thanks javablue for pointing out the temperature reading. I didn;'t carch it, I alsoi couldn't relate to a Kelvin temp scale, I watched the temperature scene again and the CC reads .: Computerized Voice #2 "Temperature at 2.724 K" THis occurs just after they land on the moon's surface. So I take that to mean the moons temperature rather than some ship's system readout. What ship system wouldm have thism kind of cold operating temp anyway? I don't see any mention of wind speed for example which may or may not be important. With the context of the scene it seems to me to be a surface temp to alert the crew what to expect on the outside.

The Kelvin scale has 0 at 'absolute 0', the state where atoms have no thermal energy at all. And 2.7 degrees Kelvin is cold enough to [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_helium]liquify helium[/url], where all sorts of quantum magic, like superfluids and superconductors, happens. The [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LHC#Design]LHC superconducting magnets use liquid helium[/url] for cooling.

OK Well that is cold and may be a reference to engine measurements especially since the scene invoilves Captain Janek. It a casual movie watcher it seemed like a moon surface temp. Can there be any natural way of making anything 0 degrees Kelvin? By that I mean in star travel would find an asteroid at that em? Earlier in the landing sequence while there are comment about the moon not having a heat source. Is this a referaqnce to the moon not having a inner hot core? With no heat source would any heat be there at all?...or could the surfase temp actually be closer to 0 K degrees? I can't imagine a naturally occuring space sphere at absolute zero..It doesn't computer in my little brain.

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_background_radiation]When it was finally measured in the 1960s[/url], cosmic background radiation was found to be at about 3 degrees Kelvin. If you leave something in space, far away from every star and similar energy source, it would eventually radiate its heat out until the radiation it emits is balanced by the radiation it receives. Which would be the cosmic background radiation, and the object would thus stabilize at about 3K. [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_zero#Very_low_temperatures]Colder temperatures have been achieved in the lab[/url]. From the same article, astronomical observations place the coldest known natural phenomenon at 1K (where the cooling below the cosmic background radiation occurred because of decompression of a gas; that gas now, instead of cooling, is being heated up by the CBR) The gods of thermodynamics hate us however and true absolute zero is impossible.

The computer voice says "Generator systems are inactive" just before giving the temp in ks. Does that help? The two may be connected.

@BLANDCorporatio This helps a bit in understanding the concept of ) degree K. Surely of this was the accurarte surface temp(2.724 K) at least the scientist on boarf woulf have reacted to such an exteme measurement or at leastr the experienced pilot Janek would have commentted on it. Still it sounds to me that the moon would not be at this expreme temp and still look like the moon, In fact I doubt if anthing we see portrayed on the screen would seem real enough to our eyes. Things later seem like the dust trails from the vehicles or even the storm would not exist in such a world. Maybe it was just there for background info and not meant to be scrutinized. Who would have thought that a movie from this summer would lead to a educational course.

Well, at that temperature there would be no gas in the atmosphere, or thereabouts; the atmosphere would be liquid vapor at best, pooling near the surface. This is obviously not what we are seeing. The sunlight on LV-223 is also fairly intense (it's daylight as we know it) so that would keep temperatures slightly higher than 3K. OTOH, 3K (what was it in the film, 2.7?) is -really- close to the temperature of Cosmic Background Radiation. So I'll have to look at the film again myself to hear when/what was said about it. It -could- have been meant as to say, the Prometheus has been so long in space that the surface reached the 'temperature' of ambient space, which is the temperature of CBR, about 3K. Which would be wrong (heating inside the ship exists, and thermodynamics indicates that it will leak out, keeping the surface of the ship ever so slightly hotter than ambient background radiation).