Escape Velocity of the Earth
| Value | 11,186 m/s |
| Status | Conventional / typical value |
| Source | Derived from GM⊕ and the IUGG mean radius |
| Categories | Astronomicalearthorbital-mechanics |
| meter per second | 11,186 m/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 |
| foot per minute | 2,201,968.5 ft/min |
| centimeter per second | 1,118,600 cm/s |
| meter per hour | 40,269,600 m/h |
| meter per day | 966,470,400 m/d |
| foot per day | 3,170,834,600 ft/d |
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.