Lesson: Escape Speed Physics

Students will be able to

• use to calculate the minimum escape speed for a planet,
• understand and interpret graphs of position, speed, or energy against time for projectiles launched vertically from a planet’s surface, including those launched at or near the escape speed,
• realize that, because a planet has a radial gravitational field, the faster a projectile is launched, the more the shape of its position–time graph deviates from a parabola,
• recognize an energy–time graph that shows an object escaping a planet’s gravitational pull.