In stories ships can either enter hyperspace virtually as soon as they take off or it takes a starship a while to travel a set limit away from the planet or star. In this latter case, this limit is generally known as the hyper limit.
Apart from a degree of handwavium about the necessity of this limit and gravity wells, the real purpose of this limit is to make it impossible for the novellist's protagonists to just drop out of (or into) hyperspace right on the edge of the planet's atmosphere and attack or run away from the planet beneath the ship without the excitement of a chase scene.
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