<u>Yes. The speed of a rocket can exceed the exhaust speed of the fuel.</u>
How this is explained?
The thrust of the rocket does not depend on the relative speed of the gases or the relative speed of the rocket.
It depends on conservation of momentum.
What is conservation of momentum?
Conservation of momentum, general law of physics according to which the quantity called momentum that characterizes motion never changes in an isolated collection of objects; that is, the total momentum of a system remains constant.
Momentum is equal to the mass of an object multiplied by its velocity and is equivalent to the force required to bring the object to a stop in a unit length of time.
For any array of several objects, the total momentum is the sum of the individual momenta.
There is a peculiarity, however, in that momentum is a vector, involving both the direction and the magnitude of motion, so that the momenta of objects going in opposite directions can cancel to yield an overall sum of zero.
To know more about conservation of momentum, refer:
