Shock wave traveling in space?

[Aliceblue]

Hello;

Today i did one of those clear the asteroid field contracts and while doing it i noticed something. When i destroy an asteroid the resulting explosion kind of disturbs the position of my ship, i thought it is because of some kind of a shock wave. But in order for the shock waves to propagate there should be a medium (water,air... etc). So what would be the explanation of the position disturbance of my ship?

I know its a nerdy-science question, but it got me thinking about it

[Malix]

I'd think there would be a metric ton of small rocks shooting every direction of the explosion, so I guess its more or less being hit by a "shower" of ridiculously fast moving small or small-ish rocks.

[Viper]

Try this:

As the heat from the explosion meets the cold vacuum of space, you get water vapor (which would probably instantly turn into ice particles again) - but there is your medium. You would think that the actual expanding pressure wave travels ahead of the heat front, but I would like to argue that since the very front edge of the heat wave makes contact with the cold vacuum, it would also be that same front edge that condenses and thus carries the mass (water and/or ice), and therefor is the pressure wave itself.

[Marvin]

Now that sounds like an explanation even George Lucas could accept.

[Maarschalk]

Try this:

As the heat from the explosion meets the cold vacuum of space, you get water vapor (which would probably instantly turn into ice particles again) - but there is your medium. You would think that the actual expanding pressure wave travels ahead of the heat front, but I would like to argue that since the very front edge of the heat wave makes contact with the cold vacuum, it would also be that same front edge that condenses and thus carries the mass (water and/or ice), and therefor is the pressure wave itself.

This would only work assuming the Astroid contains Watermolecules or Hydrogen and Oxygen molecules to from water when heated up. The other alternative is the kinetic effect of the fine particals and debries inertia colliding with the ship and pushing it!....

[Bænlynn]

Because the asteroids explode due to extreme heating of their core (hence the pulp sci-fi magma lines) then the shock front would be caused by the expansion of the vapourised material, so less water vapour and more particulate material. Also, a lot of Asteroids (particularly the carbonaceous kind) are going to be covered in a thin layer of fine dust, and that will be thrown at quite a speed when the asteroid explodes.