What is Escape Speed?

Escape speed, or escape velocity, is the minimum speed an object needs to escape the gravitational pull of a celestial body, such as a planet or a star. In other words, it's the speed required to overcome the gravitational attraction without any further propulsion. The escape speed from the surface of our home planet, Earth, is approximately 11,186 m/s. The formula to calculate escape speed is given as,

Where,

G is the universal gravitational constant,

M is the mass of the celestial body, and

r is the distance from the center of the celestial body to the object.

Let's Work Through an Example

To better understand this concept, let's solve a problem involving escape speed.

Example: Saturn has a mass of 5.683 × 10 ²⁶ Kg and a radius of 58232km. What would be the escape speed from Saturn?

Solution:

We know,

Mass of Saturn, M = 5.683 × 10 ²⁶ kg

Radius of Saturn, r = 58232km

Gravitational constant, G = 6.673 × 10 ^-11 m ³ /kg/s ²
Plugging these values into the escape speed formula, we get,

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