Escape Velocity of Venus

vesc,Venus=10,360 m/sv_{\mathrm{esc},\mathrm{Venus}} = 10,360\ \text{m/s}
Value10,360 m/s
StatusConventional / typical value
SourceNASA NSSDC Planetary Fact Sheet, Venus (escape velocity)
CategoriesAstronomicalsolar-systemplanets
Escape Velocity of Venus in every speed unit
millimeter per year326,936,740,000,000 mm/yr
millimeter per hour37,296,000,000 mm/h
foot per day2,936,692,900 ft/d
inch per hour1,468,346,500 in/h
meter per day895,104,000 m/d
millimeter per minute621,600,000 mm/min
meter per hour37,296,000 m/h
inch per minute24,472,441 in/min
millimeter per second10,360,000 mm/s
foot per minute2,039,370.1 ft/min
centimeter per second1,036,000 cm/s
meter per minute621,600 m/min
inch per second407,874.02 in/s
kilometer per hour37,296 km/h
foot per second33,989.501 ft/s
mile per hour23,174.66 mph
knot20,138.229 kn
meter per second10,360 m/s
mach (sea level)30.444263 Ma
kilometer per second10.36 km/s
speed of light0.00003455724 c

Learning zone

Venus holds its atmosphere as firmly as Earth holds ours — 10.36 against 11.19 km/s — and the result is 92 bar of carbon dioxide that is not going anywhere. What Venus lost was not gas in bulk but one specific ingredient: water. With no protective magnetic field, ultraviolet light split any water vapour high in the atmosphere and the solar wind carried the hydrogen away. The fingerprint survives in the deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio, about 150 times Earth's — heavy hydrogen escapes less readily, so its enrichment records an ocean's worth of loss.

The deep gravity well also makes Venus the worst major planet to leave. Any future sample return would face nearly Earth-magnitude ascent physics while launching through a 65 kg/m³ atmosphere at 737 K — one reason no mission has ever attempted it, and why proposals for crewed exploration hover in the temperate cloud layer at 55 km rather than land.