Asymptotic minimum speed of an unbound Kepler orbit

ID: asymptotic-minimum-speed-of-an-unbound-kepler-orbit

For a positive-mass object in the inverse-square attractive field with potential zero at infinity, energy conservation gives . Along the outgoing unbound branch, speed decreases toward the displayed limiting value. It is positive for a hyperbola and zero for a parabola. This is an infimum approached at infinite separation, not a finite-radius stopping point or the local escape velocity.

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