Escape Velocity of the Earth
| Value | 11,186 m/s |
| Status | Conventional / typical value |
| Source | Derived from GM⊕ and the IUGG mean radius |
| Categories | Astronomical |
| millimeter per year | 353,003,310,000,000 mm/yr |
| millimeter per day | 966,470,400,000 mm/day |
| millimeter per hour | 40,269,600,000 mm/h |
| inch per day | 38,050,016,000 in/day |
| foot per day | 3,170,834,600 ft/d |
| inch per hour | 1,585,417,300 in/h |
| meter per day | 966,470,400 m/d |
| millimeter per minute | 671,160,000 mm/min |
| meter per hour | 40,269,600 m/h |
| inch per minute | 26,423,622 in/min |
| millimeter per second | 11,186,000 mm/s |
| foot per minute | 2,201,968.5 ft/min |
| centimeter per second | 1,118,600 cm/s |
| meter per minute | 671,160 m/min |
| inch per second | 440,393.7 in/s |
| kilometer per hour | 40,269.6 km/h |
| foot per second | 36,699.475 ft/s |
| mile per hour | 25,022.369 mph |
| knot | 21,743.844 kn |
| meter per second | 11,186 m/s |
| mach (sea level) | 32.871576 Ma |
| kilometer per second | 11.186 km/s |
| speed of light | 0.00003731248 c |
Learning zone
From √(2GM⊕/R) with the mean radius, escape velocity is 11.19 km/s — Mach 33, and exactly √2 times the 7.91 km/s needed merely to circle the planet at the surface. No chemical rocket reaches it in a single impulsive burn; launchers climb gradually while fighting gravity and drag losses, so the real delta-v to escape from the ground is closer to 13–14 km/s. Launching eastward near the equator gets you up to 0.46 km/s of it for free from Earth's rotation, which is why Kourou and Cape Canaveral are where they are.
Escape velocity also governs what an atmosphere can keep. Molecules in the high-temperature exosphere follow a Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution, and any species whose typical thermal speed climbs within about a sixth of escape velocity leaks away over geological time — which is why Earth retains nitrogen, oxygen and water vapour but has lost essentially all of its primordial hydrogen and helium.