40 Never-Heard-Of Science Facts That Will Amaze You

Escape velocity is the minimum speed required for an object to overcome a planet’s or moon’s gravitational pull. For example, without air resistance, you’d need to travel at a speed of about 11.2 km per second to break free from Earth’s gravity. It’s a critical figure for missions venturing into space.

Rockets aiming for the stars must hit this minimum speed to leave Earth behind. Meanwhile, the sun’s escape velocity towers at 618 km/s, making it seem almost impossible to escape. However, due to the intense heat, physical matter, or even light, cannot escape its grasp, similar to the way light fails to escape black holes due to their high escape velocities surpassing the speed of light itself.