Velocity quantity, momentum, is a vector and defined by In special relativity, the dimensionless Lorentz factor appears frequently, and is given by where γ is the Lorentz factor and "c" is the speed of light. Escape velocity is the minimum speed a ballistic object needs to escape from a massive body such as Earth. It represents the kinetic energy that, when added to the object's gravitational potential energy, (which is always negative) is equal to zero. The general formula for the escape velocity of an object at a distance "r" from the center of a planet with mass "M" is where
Escape velocity alternative expression for the escape velocity formula_6 particularly useful at the surface on the body is: where "r" is the distance between the center of the body and the point at which escape velocity is being calculated and "g" is the gravitational acceleration at that distance (i.e., the surface gravity). For a body with a spherically-symmetric distribution of mass, the escape velocity formula_6 from the surface is proportional to the radius assuming constant density, and proportional to the square root of the average density ρ. where formula_14 The escape velocity "relative to the surface" of a rotating body depends on