New! Sign up for our free email newsletter.
Reference Terms
from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Light-year

A light-year or lightyear (symbol: ly) is a unit of measurement of length, specifically the distance light travels in a vacuum in one year. While there is no authoritative decision on which year is used, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) recommends the Julian year. A light-year is equal to 9,460,730,472,580.8 km (about 9.461 Pm; 5,878,625,373,183.61 statute miles; about 63,240 astronomical units or about 0.3066 parsecs. The exact length of the light-year depends on the length of the reference year used in the calculation, and there is no wide consensus on the reference to be used. The figures above are based on a reference year of exactly 365.25 days (each of exactly 86,400 SI seconds). A few examples of distances for light to travel are: Reflected sunlight from the Moon's surface takes 1.3 seconds to travel the 4.04 × 10-8 light years to Earth. It takes 8.3 minutes for light to travel from the Sun to the Earth (a distance of 1.58 × 10-5 light-years). The most distant space probe, Voyager 1, was 13 light hours (only 1.5 × 10-3 light years) away from Earth in September 2004. It took Voyager 27 years to cover that distance. The nearest known star (other than the Sun), Proxima Centauri is 4.22 light years away. The center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, is about 26,000 light years away.

Related Stories
 


Space & Time News

June 6, 2026

A lightweight new X-ray telescope could finally give scientists something they’ve never had before: a complete chemical map of the Moon. Researchers used detailed mission simulations to show that a compact telescope orbiting the Moon could ...
NASA’s PExT terminal has shown that spacecraft can seamlessly communicate through multiple government and commercial networks, a major step beyond traditional single-network systems. The mission is now expanding to test new capabilities that could ...
Scientists have proposed a new method for finding tightly bound supermassive black hole pairs by searching for stars that flash repeatedly as their light is magnified by the black holes’ gravity. The timing and brightness of these bursts could ...
Mysterious red auroras spotted over Japan were found reaching astonishingly high altitudes, even during space storms considered relatively mild. The discovery suggests hidden solar activity may be ...
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is now aiming for an earlier launch in September 2026. Designed to explore dark matter, dark energy, and distant exoplanets, the telescope will capture massive, ultra-detailed surveys of the cosmos using ...
NASA is testing a next-generation space computer chip that could give spacecraft the ability to operate far more independently in deep space. The radiation-hardened processor is showing performance levels hundreds of times beyond current spaceflight ...
NASA’s Roman Space Telescope could expose a vast hidden population of neutron stars lurking unseen across the Milky Way. By detecting subtle shifts in starlight caused by gravity, the mission may ...
Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have created the clearest map yet of the universe’s “cosmic web” — the enormous hidden structure that connects galaxies across space. By ...
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is about to pull off a dramatic close flyby of Mars, skimming just 2,800 miles above the planet to get a powerful gravitational boost on its journey to the mysterious metal-rich asteroid Psyche. The maneuver will save ...
NASA’s Curiosity rover had an unexpectedly stubborn Mars souvenir after drilling into a rock nicknamed “Atacama” — the entire chunk ripped loose from the ground and stayed stuck to the rover’s drill. Engineers watched as Curiosity shook, ...
A bold step toward returning humans to the Moon is underway with Blue Origin’s uncrewed MK1 “Endurance” lander, designed to test the technologies that future astronauts will rely on. Built in ...
A powerful new electromagnetic thruster has taken a major step forward after a successful high-energy test at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Fueled by lithium vapor and driven by intense magnetic forces, the experimental engine reached ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:56 pm ET