🚀 go-pugleaf

alen@panix.com (Alen Kalati) writes:

>Can any one explain to me what is a SPEED OF ESCAPE FROM GRAVITY?
>Is this the initial speed the mass should have in order to escape
>the gravity, without 'turning on the engines' any more?

Basically, yes.  It's the speed at which the object possesses
kinetic energy equal to the potential energy difference between
its position and infinity.  If the object has this speed to begin
with, discounting things like atmospheric friction and the effects
of other bodies, it can fly off to any distance from the 
gravitating body without any further thrust.  Its trajectory will
in general be parabolic.  If it's going faster than that, it will
follow a hyperbolic path.  If it's going more slowly, it will
follow an elliptical orbit.  Of course, any of these might
intersect the ground.



-- 
Matt McIrvin   I just learned from alt.fan.warlord that putting email
addresses in .sigs is for idiots, so look in the header.  I won't stop
my pseudo-intellectual posturing, though!  I won't!  I WON'T!