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 9, 2025

Supermassive black holes might naturally replicate the colossal energies of man-made particle colliders possibly even revealing dark matter offering a cosmic shortcut to discoveries that would ...
Astronomers have revealed new research showing that millions of new solar system objects are likely to be detected by a brand-new facility, which is expected to come online later this ...
Scientists have identified a new source of energetic particles near the Sun. These definitive observations were made by instruments aboard NASA's Parker Solar Probe, which detected the powerful phenomena as the spacecraft dipped in and out of the ...
Tracing the origin of an ultra-hot exoplanet: The chemical composition of WASP-121b suggests that it formed in a cool zone of its natal disc, comparable to the region of gas and ice giants in our Solar System. Methane indicates unexpected ...
Researchers have engineered a laser device smaller than a penny that they say could power everything from the LiDAR systems used in self-driving vehicles to gravitational wave detection, one of the most delicate experiments in existence to observe ...
A series of studies sheds light on the origins and characteristics of intermediate-mass black ...
The process of necrosis, a form of cell death, may represent one of the most promising ways to change the course of human aging, disease and even space travel, according to a new ...
A multi-sensor detection of an intense gamma-ray flash, which occurs when two lightning leaders collided, has been observed. Observations across a wide radiation spectrum enabled precise measurement of the electric current produced during this ...
Astronomers have explained how a galaxy cluster maintains its heat, despite emitting X-rays that cool the hot gas at its center. The group discovered the existence of a fast-moving, high-temperature ...
A team of international astronomers have discovered a new cosmic object emitting both radio waves and ...
A series of experiments support spectral data recently collected by the James Webb Space Telescope that found evidence that the icy surface of Jupiter's moon Europa is constantly changing. Europa's surface ice is crystallizing at different rates in ...
Scientists have observed anyons -- quasiparticles that differ from the familiar fermions and bosons -- in a one-dimensional quantum system for the first time. The results may contribute to a better ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:56 pm ET