Question

In class, we learned that the escape velocity is proportional to the square root of (Mass / Radius) of a celestial object. For the surface of the Earth (radius = 6380 km), the escape velocity is 11.2 km/s.

Use this information to calculate the escape velocity for a neutron star in units of the speed of light (c = 299,792 km/s). Assume the neutron star is 2 solar masses, which is equivalent to 666,000 earth masses, and it has a radius of 10 km.

(Technically, we have to correct the escape velocity equation for relativistic effects, but we can use the classical expression to get an estimate.)

Answer 1