Yesterday I learned something that was immediately life-changing. Not  in a health or spiritual sense, but something much subtler, having to do with merely knowing the truth about this thing, and how much I’ll be thinking about it now that I know what I know. What I’m about to tell you is one of those things that I will never forget and will probably tell everyone I know, and possibly even people I don’t know.

Ready?

Space…

…like outer space, the void between all planets and stars…

Yeah, go on…

HAS A SCENT.

But what kind of scent?

THE FUCKING SCENT OF SPACE.

A. Burnt steak

B. Gunpowder

It clings to everything that is exposed to open space. Astronaut suits acquire the odor after the first space walk and it never goes away. The bays on the space station and shuttles all have it, as does every tool and piece of equipment brought inside after being in open space. Astronauts say you smell it after the first hatch opening, and you’ll never forget it. Some say it’s sweet, some say acrid. All agree it’s a combination of burnt steak and gunpowder, some have added that it hints of “arc welding fumes” and ozone.

It never goes away.

The fucking scent of space.

The reason this is more interesting than you might immediately realize is that soon, in the next couple of generations, this scent will be familiar to everyone. As we start to terraform and colonize our solar system and beyond, and as our human lives shift from terrestrial to space travel, the smell of space will be with us, on us, in us. What we are just now smelling for the first time will be the dominant scent of our future human lives.

The fucking scent of space.

It’s the smell of dying stars and it’s everywhere in the universe. The only reason we don’t smell it is because of our atmosphere. But anything that spends any time between planets or in orbit around them will acquire this smell, the smell of the universe, the smell of stars.

Your life will never be the same now. You’re welcome.