What Is A Light Year Away From Earth
Looking back in time.
What is a light year away from earth. A light year is a measurement of distance and not time as the name might suggest. Because it includes the word year the term light year may be. 4 light years away is an expression of distance. Scaling the earth sun distance at one inch places this star at 4 4 miles 7 km distant.
It took voyager 27 years to cover that distance. Let s do the math an. When we use powerful telescopes to look at distant objects in space we are actually looking back in time. One light year is about 6 trillion miles 9 trillion km.
The most distant space probe voyager 1 was 13 light hours only 1 5 10 3 light years away from earth in september 2004. Let me give this a try. As defined by the international astronomical union iau a light year is the distance that light travels in vacuum in one julian year 365 25 days. A light year is the distance a beam of light travels in a single earth year or 6 trillion miles 9 7 trillion.
Some 53 stellar systems beyond our own the solar system currently lie within 5 0 parsecs 16 3 light years of the sun these systems contain a total of 63 stars of which 50 are red dwarfs by far the most common type of star in the milky way much more massive stars such as our own make up the remaining 13. It s an expression used because the distance is so huge that it would be cumbersome to express the same distance in for example kilometers or miles. Light travels at a speed of 186 000 miles. A light year is the distance a photon of light travels in an earth year.
A light year is the distance light travels in one earth year. That is a 6 with 12 zeros behind it. The closest star to earth other than the sun is alpha centauri at some 4 4 light years away. A beam of light from this star takes about 4 years to travel to earth.
In addition to these true stars scientists have identified 11 brown dwarfs. The light year is a unit of length used to express astronomical distances and measures about 9 46 trillion kilometres 9 46 x 10 12 km or 5 88 trillion miles 5 88 x 10 12 mi. This is equivalent to 9 460 730 472 580 8 km just under ten trillion kilometers.