Escape Velocity of the Moon
| Value | 2,380 m/s |
| Status | Conventional / typical value |
| Source | Derived from the GRAIL lunar GM and the mean radius |
| Categories | Astronomical |
| millimeter per year | 75,107,088,000,000 mm/yr |
| millimeter per day | 205,632,000,000 mm/day |
| millimeter per hour | 8,568,000,000 mm/h |
| inch per day | 8,095,748,000 in/day |
| foot per day | 674,645,670 ft/d |
| inch per hour | 337,322,830 in/h |
| meter per day | 205,632,000 m/d |
| millimeter per minute | 142,800,000 mm/min |
| meter per hour | 8,568,000 m/h |
| inch per minute | 5,622,047.2 in/min |
| millimeter per second | 2,380,000 mm/s |
| foot per minute | 468,503.94 ft/min |
| centimeter per second | 238,000 cm/s |
| meter per minute | 142,800 m/min |
| inch per second | 93,700.787 in/s |
| kilometer per hour | 8,568 km/h |
| foot per second | 7,808.399 ft/s |
| mile per hour | 5,323.9084 mph |
| knot | 4,626.3499 kn |
| meter per second | 2,380 m/s |
| mach (sea level) | 6.9939523 Ma |
| kilometer per second | 2.38 km/s |
| speed of light | 0.0000079388255 c |
Learning zone
At 2.38 km/s the Moon cannot hold an atmosphere. Gas molecules at lunar daytime temperatures reach a substantial fraction of that speed, so anything released — from outgassing, from comet impacts, from the Apollo landers themselves — escapes within weeks. What remains is an exosphere so thin, around 10⁵ particles per cubic centimetre, that atoms essentially never collide with one another.
The low escape speed is also what made Apollo feasible. The ascent stage carried a single small engine and no heat shield, since there was no atmosphere to slow it and none to fly through; and it is why lunar resources are so often discussed for propellant depots, where launching water or oxygen out of the Moon's shallow gravity well costs a small fraction of lifting it from Earth.