http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ExplosionsInSpace

Complete with a Planar Shockwave

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A subtrope of Space Does Not Work That Way

Hollywood is not interested in teaching or even researching physics, and generally doesn't even depict normal explosions on Earth accurately, so it's no surprise that explosions in space rely on Rule of Cool rather than science. In the movies, explosions in space work pretty much the same way explosions on Earth would (or rather the way film-makers imagine they would, with lots of red flames and smoke).

In reality, space has no air to transfer the explosive energy to. Thus, explosions would have an initial brilliant flash, and the resulting spherical fireball and debris would travel away from the point of explosion far too fast for the eye to see. Do note that without any atmosphere or gravity to act on the debris, it will continue on at full speed until it hits something, meaning such an explosion could actually be more dangerous than it would have been in an atmosphere.

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Nuclear explosions would be similar, but with a much brighter flash, and little or no visible debris since it would be vaporized.

Explosions in vacuum on the surface of a planet, moon, asteroid etc. will look similar to those in zero-g, but any debris that does not achieve escape velocity in the local gravity field will arc back down and rain to the surface. In low gravity, this could take minutes or even hours.

Further, if a spacecraft blows up, the explosion should have the same velocity as the craft did (possibly altered by the velocity of whatever hit it). I.e., the boom should keep moving. Many movies and shows have a fast-moving craft turn into a stationary explosion (relative to the camera).

Above all, explosions in vacuum would be silent.

In many cases, this is caused by the method of special effects: actual pyrotechnics in an atmosphere. It should be noted that this is generally considered an Acceptable Break From Reality by the majority of the audience. Some works even try to find ways to work around it. One way is fictional elements used as fuel for ships, which are very flammable.

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Many Hollywood Explosions In Space will also include a Planar Shockwave.

This is such an ubiquitous trope that only aversions and subversions should be listed.

Exceptions

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Anime and Manga

Most explosions in space combat scenes in most Gundam series' follow the more realistic quickly-fading spherical explosion pattern. There usually doesn't seem to be much debris, though, but it may just be vaporized by the Mobile Suit's compact reactors failing catastrophically.

Macross is also another big user of the spherical explosions, in or out of space.

Planetes, being on the hard end of the Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness, averts this. When a space center on the Moon where a giant spacecraft engine is constructed blows up, an immense cone of ejected matter is shown, in a realistic and terrifying way.

Comics

In the DCAU tie-in Justice League comic story "Disarmed", Green Lantern evicts an alien bomb off of Earth, making a comment that he never gets used to how quiet explosions are in space. The explosion is represented primarily as a sphere of light (with pointy bits on the compass points).

Fan Works

Mostly averted in Bait and Switch and Red Fire, Red Planet, a pair of Star Trek Online fics with Character Overlap. Ships that suffer a warp core or fusion bottle breach tend to be described as going up in a "retina-searing white flash" or something similar. Other destroyed vessels tend to leave large chunks of themselves behind, such as a Jem'Hadar attack ship that had its front half blown away by a shot to the torpedo magazine.

Film

Literature

In the Honor Harrington series, ships that have their fusion bottle fail just have a "single, eye-searing flash," and then are gone. It's also mentioned that nuclear warheads are only useful as weapons in space if they get a direct hit (which is highly unlikely, though it does happen on occasion), which is why missile weapons had moved on to using bomb-pumped lasers by the start of the series.

In Matthew Reilly's Area 7, when a space shuttle gets hit by a missile, it simply cracks.

In the American Robotech novels, explosions in space are always spherical.

In The City Who Fought, a starship whose drive systems are going critical explodes near the protagonists' space station, and the resulting debris field makes venturing outside extremely hazardous for quite a while.

The History of the Galaxy series generally tends to describe explosions in space correctly. Usually, the danger is not the explosion itself, but the debris flying from the exploding ship or station in every direction at high speeds.

In another novel, a hyper-advanced ship (officially classified as a light cruiser but with enough firepower to take out a conventional fleet) is mentioned to be armed to the teeth with nuclear missiles. The author then proceeds to explain that, in space, this really isn't as dangerous as it sounds. With advanced point-defense systems and EM shielding (protecting from nuclear radiation and EMP), a ship can be effectively immune to a nuclear barrage, as nuclear explosions (without any matter to "feed" on or air to move) only have an effective range of a few miles.

In The Lost Fleet, ships explode in a brief bright flash only in two cases: reactor containment fails, or two ships collide at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light (ships normally maneuver at 10% of c). In both cases, little is left of the ship after the flash. Most ships that are destroyed in battle simply break apart and continue on their original trajectory, as pieces start to move apart.

In Robert A. Heinlein's Between Planets it is done correctly when Circum-Terra Station was destroyed by a nuclear weapon. The blast was described as a second sun, blazing white, and as an expanding, perfectly geometrical sphere. The story also explicitly states that there would not be a mushroom cloud in the vacuum of space.

Track (a 1980's action-adventure series by Jerry Ahern). In "Revenge of the Master" a neo-Nazi bomb maker plans to explode a bomb on board the space shuttle, and gives some thought to how the vacuum will affect the explosion.

In the 1940's Venus Equilateral tales by George O. Smith, the eponymous Space Station is being threatened by a Space Pirate. Various means of defense are considered including guided torpedoes. However it's pointed out that explosives have little effect in a vacuum as there is no atmosphere to create a pressure wave, shrapnel might not penetrate the hull and even an armor piercing warhead has to hit the fast-moving spaceship in the first place.

Live Action TV

Like every Sci-Fi show, Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis have this. However, when they use nukes, the explosions are at least spherical and without a mushroom cloud.

In Firefly, damaged ships (such as a derelict freighter blown up by an Alliance cruiser in "Bushwhacked") simply break up, with the broken parts drifting in the trajectory of the ship. There was also no sound of the explosion of break up (which was true for most space shots in Firefly)

There are lots of these in Star Trek after a Standard Starship Scuffle with an enemy vessel.

In Battlestar Galactica, explosions usually die out quickly and fiery explosions (which are caused by oxygen in the ships that blow up themselves - the reason why Cylon raiders hardly ever blow up but just disintegrate mostly) appear 'smeared' by velocity. Also, nuclear explosions do appear mostly as 'just flashes' as described above, without the trope-ish fireball and/or mushroom clouds. While capital-ship shots were generally silent, smaller fighter craft generally had full sound in space. The creators fully intended for all space battles to be silent, but upon viewing the results, decided it was too unnatural and inserted sound effects. In a nod to original intent, all sound effects in space are still noticeably subdued.

Averted in The Expanse. When a ship is nuked, it breaks apart and vanishes in a bright flash and spherical blue explosion. Another nice touch is that ships don't actually explode without the application of explosives, as seen in "Doors and Corners," when Rocinante wins a space battle by Swiss-cheesing their opponent with PDC note Point-Defense Cannons, large-caliber rotary-barrel machine guns similar in form and function to the Phalanx CIWS guns on real-life warships

Newspaper Comics

A The Far Side strip mocked this trope (and Space Is Noisy). A scientist jumps up in a crowded theater, yelling "Stop the movie! Stop the movie! Explosions don't go 'boom' in a vacuum!"

Tabletop Games

Though the visual isn't discussed, explosions in GURPS lose about half of their power when in space due to lack of atmosphere.

Video Games

In EVE Online, the explosion effects look pretty much correct according to what is described above. They are slowed down, however, so that the players can savor in the shiny afterglow of the ship they just helped blow up. Nobody's perfect, though: Torpedoes still give a great planar shockwave. So do large structures when they go BOOM. Every time a Drone Silo is blown up, a planar shockwave comes with the explosion, free of charge. They do get the "Explosion moves on original trajectory at original velocity" bit, at least. Sadly, the same can't be said for the wreck that's left behind, though that's so you don't have to go chasing it down when you want to loot it. The Sound Effects are justified in game by the simple fact that everything you see as a pod pilot is a VR simulation of actual events, piped directly into your head while you are safely curled up inside your pod full of goo. Apparently early versions of the Pod tech didn't bother with Sound but the lack of it tended to send the (already mentally unbalanced) capsuleers completely insane.

Star Fox games do this as well, with ships mostly breaking apart after being hit or the classic "BOMB" item going in a perfect sphere.

Slyly justified in the early PC game Elite. The manual explained that when a ship or similar explodes in space, as well as the flash it produces a burst of radio waves which, hitting your communicator, make a sound just like an explosion.

While Dead Space games gets the workings of gravity and vacuum right most of the time, in the second game there is a curious exception. In a zero-gravity area (with oxygen) there is a large, roaring fire. Despite the lack of gravity, the flames are reaching "upwards", instead of expanding in all directions.

In Sword of the Stars nukes produce a small spherical blast in space, and the only other explosives are acid and nanite bombs that leave a sphere-shaped corrosive cloud. And when used in Orbital Bombardment nukes produce a sphere again but substantially bigger. When ships are destroyed, their parts continue to travel in the same direction for a few seconds before they blow up. This is even true of Liir ships which, technically, don't move in the Newtonian sense but teleport millions of times per second. Thus, when Liir ships are destroyed, their wrecks should stay relatively at rest.

The enemy ships in Rodina will turn into a fiery wreck if you shoot them enough. Your ship will also do that if it loses all of its health, or if it catches on fire.

Webcomics

Web Original

In SuperMarioLogan's "Bowser Junior Goes To The Sun!", Junior's Space Shuttle (named Octopus) explodes when it gets too close to the Sun.

Western Animation

In Il était une fois...... Space, ships in space usually blow up in spherical explosions especially when the Cassiopeian fleet, and especially their Nautilus-class warships, is being obliterated in mass by the Humanoids , that often do not even expand. They always come with sound, however, and in one episode a warship from the Omega Confederation after being hit explodes producing a planar shockwave.

Real Life