But if you were to throw the ball incredibly fast—specifically, 11.2 km/s, the escape velocity of the Earth—you could in principle give the ball so much of a push that it leaves the Earth entirely, slowing down slightly all the while, and only comes to rest infinitely far in the future (or, I suppose, when it hits something else). If you throw it even faster, it’ll be completely unbound from the Earth and just coast away forever.
