And indeed, what is the largest unit of distance measurement?
2006-06-25 06:53:50 · 23 answers · asked by Simon W 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Two I have seen are AU where 1 AU or Astronomical Unit is the distance between the Earth and Sun, and LD which is the Lunar Distance, approx 250000 miles.
Largest? Parsec: A unit of astronomical length based on the distance from Earth at which stellar parallax is one second of arc and equal to 3.258 light-years, 3.086 × 10^13 kilometers, or 1.918 × 10^13 miles.
2006-06-30 09:54:18 · answer #1 · answered by Gavin T 7 · 2⤊ 2⤋
You have asked two questions so I do not know how to answer.
A distance between a mile and a lightyear (assuming you know what a light year is) is a nautical mile. Because of the curvature of the earth, the nautical mile is measured slightly larger than a mile.
A lightyear is the largest unit of distance measurement. It is the distance travelled by light in one year.
Do the math: 1,860,000 miles x 3600 seconds x 24 hours x 365 days. Just can't fathom...! For sun's rays it takes 7.5 minutes to reach the earth. Some stars in distant galaxy are several 100's of light years away.
The stars you can see in the sky that you think is there today was actually there several years ago.
It takes that long for that light to reach us to be visible because they are so many light years away.
2006-06-25 07:09:45 · answer #2 · answered by Nightrider 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You can introduce anything like kilomile or megamile between a mile and a lightyear.
The largest unit of distance measurement is Kpc (kilopersec)
1 kilopersec = 1000 persec.
Kpc is commonly used in astronomy.
The parsec (symbol pc) is a unit of length used in astronomy. It stands for "parallax of one arc second".
It is based on the method of trigonometric parallax, one of the most ancient and standard methods of determining stellar distances. The parallax of a star is half of the angular distance a star appears to move against the celestial sphere due to the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. Equivalently, it is the angle subtended at a star by the radius of the Earth's orbit. One parsec is defined to be the distance from the Earth to a star that has a parallax of 1 arcsecond. It is, therefore, approximately:
* 360×60×60/(2π) = 206,264.8062 AU
* 3.08567758×1016 m
* 19,173,511,600,000 miles
* 3.26156378 light years
2006-06-25 07:25:52 · answer #3 · answered by rinjam 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
An , Astronomical Unit ( AU ) is an unit for Space measurement, it is the distance from the Earth to the Sun, it is used to measure Space like a Light Year
A Light Minute is the distance Light travels in a minute
An AU is about 8 Light Minutes
2006-06-26 04:34:11 · answer #4 · answered by revolutionman1379 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I think a "nautical mile" { a unit of measurement used by sailors }
Is in between and mile and lightyeer. It is about 6,078 feet. A mile is around 5000. A lightyear is the largest unit of measurement.
2006-06-25 06:57:41 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
League
Nautical Mile
Astronomical Unit
2006-06-28 00:35:19 · answer #6 · answered by Tropic-of-Cancer 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A lightyear is nearly 6 trillion miles. There are also light minutes (17,987,547,480 m) and light seconds (299,792,458 m).
If you click on the link below, it will show you a list describing all the different units of length measurement. There is even a measurement called the yottametre, which equals 100 million light years. 2 Ym is the diameter of the Virgo(Local) Supercluster, a supercluster of galaxies that includes the Milky Way. Incredible!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_%28length%29
Hope this helps!
2006-06-25 06:58:28 · answer #7 · answered by Cap'n Eridani 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A lightyear is the distance light travels in one year. A mile is something measured much differently and the two don't correlate.
2006-06-26 06:27:25 · answer #8 · answered by kmermel 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
An astronomical unit is the distance from the Earth to the Sun. A light year is the distance light travels in a year. It takes about 8 minutes for light to travel one AU, so if you divide the number of minutes in a year by 8 you will get approximately the number of astronomical units in a light year. Or you can look it up in wiki to get the answer which is 1 light year = 63,240 astronomical units. The nearest star is about 4 light years away. In other words it is so far away that the light from the star takes 4 years to reach us.
2016-03-27 03:58:10 · answer #9 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A parsec is about 3.25 lightyears and is a measurement of the distance from earth at which stellar parallax is one second of arc.
2006-06-25 07:00:08 · answer #10 · answered by Gehrig 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋