Labs / Astronomy
Escape Velocity Launcher
Drag upward on the planet to load a launch speed, then let go to fire a shot straight up. Gravity weakens with distance, so the projectile keeps coasting even as it slows — the question is whether it ever runs out of speed and falls back. Rebuild the planet with the mass & radius sliders and hunt for the threshold where it finally escapes for good.
v 11.00 km/salt 0 kmv_esc 11.19 km/sg 9.8 m/s²Climbing
What to try
- Set the launch speed just below the escape velocity readout. How high does the peak marker climb before it turns around?
- Keep the mass fixed and shrink the radius. Why does packing the same mass into a smaller world make it harder to escape?
- On Jupiter, can you reach escape velocity at all with this launcher? What does that tell you about giant planets?
- Double a planet's mass. Does the escape velocity double too, or grow more slowly?
- Once a shot has clearly escaped, watch the speed gauge — why does it level off at a value above zero instead of dropping to nothing?