[GlentoranMark (OP)]

I'm just watching Superman 2 and he explodes a bomb in space which releases the baddies  :0

Would it create a shockwave?

[RD]

A supernova is a sort of bomb ... http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/photo10-173.html

[GlentoranMark (OP)]

Is the quote, "In space, no-one can hear you scream", misleading?

I know sound waves can't travel but would there be a shockwave?

[simplified]

Is the quote, "In space, no-one can hear you scream", misleading?

I know sound waves can't travel but would there be a shockwave?

Explosion gases will freely travel in space.

[yor_on]

And radiation, which brings with it a momentum, which is a pressure of sorts. So yeah, it sure will be shock waves. After all, the imprint of the Big Bangs shock waves is said to be seen still if I remember rightly.

"I understand that sound cannot be heard in space. Was there another kind of wave created during the Big Bang? Would it still be traveling through space? How would it register? And how would it dissipate if there is no "end" to space?

A sound wave in air is simply a sequence of compressions (higher than normal density) and rarefactions (regions of lower than normal density) which propagate through the air at the speed of sound (compressions like to expand because of their higher pressure, the rarefactions like to get smaller -- the result is a propagating wave).

If the sound waves are of the correct wavelength, we hear them as ordinary sound -- shorter ones are perceived as having higher pitch. If the waves are too short or too long in wavelength, we cannot hear them, but they are still called sound waves. Any gas can support similar waves.

Such waves were present in the Big Bang. A big part of the pressure of the gas was the radiation (seen as microwaves) and these determined the sound speed. Early in the expansion, the density of the gas became low enough that the radiation could no longer see it, to communicate its pressure to the gas. At this point, the sound no longer propagated and the microwave radiation retained the imprint of the sound at that epoch. The various wavelengths seen in the microwaves tell us about the physical conditions early in the Big Bang. We would not hear these waves as sound.

A place to read more about this is on the WMAP mission website. You might want to explore this site further for more information on the cosmic microwave background radiation." http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/qa_sp_en.html

[CliffordK]

Is the quote, "In space, no-one can hear you scream", misleading?

I know sound waves can't travel but would there be a shockwave?

Explosion gases will freely travel in space.

The gases from the explosion will travel in space.
They will be few surrounding secondary particles that will be induced to move

[simplified]

Is the quote, "In space, no-one can hear you scream", misleading?

I know sound waves can't travel but would there be a shockwave?

Explosion gases will freely travel in space.

The gases from the explosion will travel in space.
They will be few surrounding secondary particles that will be induced to move

You are right.In atmosphere an attack of shockwave is shorter, therefore force of the attack is stronger.

[evan_au]

The radiation of a nuclear device exploded in space would affect any satellites in line of sight of the explosion.

It also produces ElectroMagnetic Pulse (EMP) effects over a large section of the Earth's surface.
This is due to the effects such as gamma rays bouncing off electrons in the upper atmosphere.
It would be unnoticed by humans, but would have bad effects on our electronics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse

[RE.Craig]

I'm just watching Superman 2 and he explodes a bomb in space which releases the baddies  :0

Would it create a shockwave?

It would create a wave of expanding gases in which a shock wave would be propagated, there would however be little or no bow shock ahead of the expanding gases as would be the case in an tropospheric explosion.