Definition of escape velocity
: the minimum velocity that a moving body (such as a rocket) must have to escape from the gravitational field of a celestial body (such as the earth) and move outward into space
Examples of escape velocity in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web To achieve Earth-escape velocity, a second firing will end about 53 minutes after liftoff, after which the spacecraft will be released on its journey to Mars.
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Eric Berger, Ars Technica, "NASA’s most complex, ambitious rover yet is on its way to Mars [Updated]," 30 July 2020 Two Centaur firings were required to boost the Perseverance rover and its planetary cruise stage to an Earth-escape velocity of about 26,000 mph.
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William Harwood, CBS News, "NASA launches Mars Perseverance rover on mission to the red planet," 30 July 2020 Younger kids can match pictures of celestial objects, and older kids and adults can learn facts about space, like the escape velocity of the earth.
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Popular Science, "Trivia games that (might) count as home schooling," 27 Mar. 2020 Its shares achieved escape velocity earlier this week thanks to the Wuhan coronavirus contagion that’s going global.
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Bernhard Warner, Fortune, "This surprising sector is beating the S&P 500, and it seems impervious to coronavirus," 29 Jan. 2020 What the company needs, though, is escape velocity.
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Washington Post, "Tesla Needs Even More Than Ludicrous Speed," 20 Sep. 2019 With escape velocity in mind, don’t let up on the throttle one bit.
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Josh Linkner, Detroit Free Press, "A powerful concept used by NASA can help you get your ideas off the ground," 19 Oct. 2019 In the late 18th century, the scientist John Michell pondered what would happen if a star were so massive, and its gravity so strong, that its escape velocity would be equivalent to the speed of light.
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Jennifer Ouellette, Quanta Magazine, "The Fuzzball Fix for a Black Hole Paradox," 23 June 2015 Secret was one of the last pop-up social networks to approach something resembling escape velocity.
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Casey Newton, The Verge, "There’s a crack at the heart of Facebook’s advertising business," 4 Oct. 2018
See MoreThese example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'escape velocity.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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Time Traveler for escape velocity
The first known use of escape velocity was in 1934
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