The way humans construct a vision of reality, a model of the world, is through our five senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. While some believe that we only rely mostly on visual and hearing information, our brains rely on all senses to give us the big picture. But all that goes out the window in deep space.
Science tells us that there is no air in space, only vacuum, and just like sounds need a medium to travel, so do smells. Even NASA can’t seem to wrap its minds around complete silence and a universe without smells. In May 2022, the agency created a remix of what a black hole would sound like. NASA has also kept track of what astronauts repeatedly claim. Astronauts say that space smells rather metallic with a touch of seared meat.
NASA has also done experiments on how flowers smell on the International Space Station. Additionally, the agency studies the effects of excess cerebrospinal fluid due to microgravity. The fluid excess “bloats” astronauts’ heads and affects smell and taste. It is also the reason why siracha, tabasco, and other hot sauces, soy sauces, and BBQ sauces are so prized by astronauts in space. Scientists studying the chemical compositions of the cosmos say that space has a scent, whether humans can smell it or not.
Why space and our galaxy smell like raspberries and rum
In 2009, a study published in Astrophysics revealed that the Milky Way galaxy smells like rum and raspberries. The finding was confirmed by other studies years later, per Astrophysical Journal Letters. These scientific studies focused on organic molecules found in Sagittarius B2 — a giant molecular cloud of gas and dust located about 390 light-years from the center of the Milky Way — where stars are born. The findings revealed that ethyl formate and n-propyl cyanide were among the interstellar chemical elements found in the cosmic cloud. Ethyl formate is why raspberries and rum smell like they do.
“It does happen to give raspberries their flavor, but there are many other molecules that are needed to make space raspberries,” Arnaud Belloche from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn told The Guardian. One of the main reasons why studies search for cosmic chemical elements’ signatures is to find amino acids, which are known as the building blocks of life.
A strange NASA project that revealed the smell of space
The findings of these studies, which indicate space smells like raspberries and rum, have also been confirmed by astronauts and what began as a strange NASA project. On June 30, 2020, CNN reported on the Kickstarter project of Steve Pearce, once hired by NASA to do a space smell study. Eau de Space has sold more than half a million dollars in perfumes and only has two products: Eau de Space (the Smell of Space) and Eau de Luna (the Smell of the moon). Eau de Space says that decades ago NASA made a fragrance just for astronauts to know what space smelled like before going up.
According to Pearce, the fragrance was composed based on astronauts’ descriptions which included smells of seared steak, welding, raspberries, and rum. The smell of the moon, according to astronauts and Eau de Space, has a touch more of a gunpowder scent in it. The obsession with smell in space is deeply linked to making our connection and understanding of the cosmos more human and will likely continue as humanity ventures deeper into the universe because our five senses are what make humans, humans.
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