What is Saturn's Escape Velocity and How Do I Calculate It?

[Zack Davis]

Hey guys and girls. I've been trying to calculate Saturn's Escape Velocity but my answer is coming out way to high. Could someone demonstrate how I would go about finding Saturn's Escape Velocity?

 

[cjl]

What method have you been trying to use, and how do you know it's wrong?

 

[Zack Davis]

What method have you been trying to use, and how do you know it's wrong?

I've been using the formula:
Ve= the square root of 2GM/R

I've been comparing my answer to Nasa's data tables on the planets.

 

[Adrian B]

What values are you plugging into that equation and what are their units?

 

[Zack Davis]

G= 6.67x10^-11
M= 568.3x10^24 Kg
R= 60000 Km

 

[Zack Davis]

I found the problem! I needed to convert the radius of Saturn to meters for the formula to work! My final answer with this fix, the escape velocity of Saturn is 35.546 km per sec.
Thanks everyone!

 

[Adrian B]

Glad you figured it out. I noticed that when you listed the values you didn't specify the units for G. In the future, you can almost certainly avoid the problem you ran into by including units in your calculations. In this case, you would have run into different "km" and "m" units and you would have realized that you needed to covert one to the other.