# Escape velocity

In physics, escape velocity is the minimum speed needed for an object to escape from the gravitational influence of a massive body.

The escape velocity from Earth is about 11.186 km/s (6.951 mi/s; 40,270 km/h; 25,020 mph)[1] at the surface. More generally, escape velocity is the speed at which the sum of an object's kinetic energy and its gravitational potential energy is equal to zero;[nb 1] an object which has achieved escape velocity is neither on the surface, nor in a closed orbit (of any radius). With escape velocity in a direction pointing away from the ground of a massive body, the object will move away from the body, slowing forever and approaching, but never reaching, zero speed. Once escape velocity is achieved, no further impulse need be applied for it to continue in its escape. In other words, if given escape velocity, the object will move away from the other body, continually slowing, and will asymptotically approach zero speed as the object's distance approaches infinity, never to come back.[2] Speeds higher than escape velocity have a positive speed at infinity. Note that the minimum escape velocity assumes that there is no friction (e.g., atmospheric drag), which would increase the required instantaneous velocity to escape the gravitational influence, and that there will be no future sources of additional velocity (e.g., thrust), which would reduce the required instantaneous velocity.

For a spherically symmetric, massive body such as a star, or planet, the escape velocity for that body, at a given distance, is calculated by the formula[3]

${\displaystyle v_{e}={\sqrt {\frac {2GM}{r}}},}$

where G is the universal gravitational constant (G ≈ 6.67×10−11 m3·kg−1·s−2), M the mass of the body to be escaped from, and r the distance from the center of mass of the body to the object.[nb 2] The relationship is independent of the mass of the object escaping the massive body. Conversely, a body that falls under the force of gravitational attraction of mass M, from infinity, starting with zero velocity, will strike the massive object with a velocity equal to its escape velocity given by the same formula.

When given a speed ${\displaystyle V}$ greater than the escape speed ${\displaystyle v_{e},}$ the object will asymptotically approach the hyperbolic excess speed ${\displaystyle v_{\infty },}$ satisfying the equation:[4]

${\displaystyle {v_{\infty }}^{2}=V^{2}-{v_{e}}^{2}.}$

In these equations atmospheric friction (air drag) is not taken into account. A rocket moving out of a gravity well does not actually need to attain escape velocity to escape, but could achieve the same result (escape) at any speed with a suitable mode of propulsion and sufficient propellant to provide the accelerating force on the object to escape. Escape velocity is only required to send a ballistic object on a trajectory that will allow the object to escape the gravity well of the mass M.

## Overview

Luna 1, launched in 1959, was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth (see below table).[5]

The existence of escape velocity is a consequence of conservation of energy and an energy field of finite depth. For an object with a given total energy, which is moving subject to conservative forces (such as a static gravity field) it is only possible for the object to reach combinations of locations and speeds which have that total energy; and places which have a higher potential energy than this cannot be reached at all. By adding speed (kinetic energy) to the object it expands the possible locations that can be reached, until, with enough energy, they become infinite.

For a given gravitational potential energy at a given position, the escape velocity is the minimum speed an object without propulsion needs to be able to "escape" from the gravity (i.e. so that gravity will never manage to pull it back). Escape velocity is actually a speed (not a velocity) because it does not specify a direction: no matter what the direction of travel is, the object can escape the gravitational field (provided its path does not intersect the planet).

The simplest way of deriving the formula for escape velocity is to use conservation of energy. For the sake of simplicity, unless stated otherwise, we assume that an object is attempting to escape from a uniform spherical planet by moving away from it and that the only significant force acting on the moving object is the planet's gravity. In its initial state, i, imagine that a spaceship of mass m is at a distance r from the center of mass of the planet, whose mass is M. Its initial speed is equal to its escape velocity, ${\displaystyle v_{e}}$. At its final state, f, it will be an infinite distance away from the planet, and its speed will be negligibly small and assumed to be 0. Kinetic energy K and gravitational potential energy Ug are the only types of energy that we will deal with, so by the conservation of energy,

${\displaystyle (K+U_{g})_{i}=(K+U_{g})_{f}\,}$

Kƒ = 0 because final velocity is zero, and U = 0 because its final distance is infinity, so

{\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\Rightarrow {}&{\frac {1}{2}}mv_{e}^{2}+{\frac {-GMm}{r}}=0+0\\[3pt]\Rightarrow {}&v_{e}={\sqrt {\frac {2GM}{r}}}={\sqrt {\frac {2\mu }{r}}}\end{aligned}}}

where μ is the standard gravitational parameter.

The same result is obtained by a relativistic calculation, in which case the variable r represents the radial coordinate or reduced circumference of the Schwarzschild metric.[6][7]

Defined a little more formally, "escape velocity" is the initial speed required to go from an initial point in a gravitational potential field to infinity and end at infinity with a residual speed of zero, without any additional acceleration.[8] All speeds and velocities measured with respect to the field. Additionally, the escape velocity at a point in space is equal to the speed that an object would have if it started at rest from an infinite distance and was pulled by gravity to that point.

In common usage, the initial point is on the surface of a planet or moon. On the surface of the Earth, the escape velocity is about 11.2 km/s, which is approximately 33 times the speed of sound (Mach 33) and several times the muzzle velocity of a rifle bullet (up to 1.7 km/s). However, at 9,000 km altitude in "space", it is slightly less than 7.1 km/s.

The escape velocity is independent of the mass of the escaping object. It does not matter if the mass is 1 kg or 1,000 kg; what differs is the amount of energy required. For an object of mass ${\displaystyle m}$ the energy required to escape the Earth's gravitational field is GMm / r, a function of the object's mass (where r is the radius of the Earth, G is the gravitational constant, and M is the mass of the Earth, M = 5.9736 × 1024 kg). A related quantity is the specific orbital energy which is essentially the sum of the kinetic and potential energy divided by the mass. An object has reached escape velocity when the specific orbital energy is greater or equal to zero.

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Simple English: Escape velocity
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