how long is a light year compared to our years?

Answer 1

Let's see: one of our years is the amount of time it takes for our planet Earth to circle the sun one complete revolution for
approximately 365 days of mean solar time. This comes out to be approximately 584.34 million miles.
A Light year is the distance that light covers traveling in a vacuum for a period of one year, approximately 5.878 trillion miles, or 10,059.3 times farther.
So if you're comparing the two "years" as far as miles traveled, well there you have it. If you're comparing them as far as time, by definition they're the same. Only light will have gone a whole lot farther than the Earth will have in the same given amount of time.

Answer 2

The thing called a "light year" is a measure of distance, rather than a measure of time. It's a compound word like "man-hours," which means the amount of work each person can do in a certain number of hours.

A light year is the distance that light travels in an ordinary earth year of 365.25 days. As light travels at an unchanging speed of 186,000 miles per second in empty space, a light year works out to 5,869,713,600,000 or close to six trillion miles.

But the answers you got to this question are amazing, and point out why you should never consider Yahoo!Answers to be a reliable source of information. The people who have posted answers on here vary widely in competence and sanity.

The answers to your question include wrong concepts, wrong numbers, wrong arithmetic, and weird science-fiction pseudo-philosophy that has nothing to do with anything. So you can't rely on answers here.

I am a trained scientist (retired) with a reverence for scientific truth, and I always make my best effort to give correct information, and not to post answers to questions I don't know anything about. Others are not so honest, and there are some real nut cases on here.

So the final answer is this: You must remember that the purpose of your education is not to give you facts, but to teach you how to find the information you need when you need it.

Learn to use the Internet, where you can get a sense of the quality of the information. Even better, learn to use the library, where the quality of information is much better.

Short term, try an internet search on "nature of light," or "speed of light." Or even on "light year."

Good luck.

Answer 3

The people with the previous answers about the light year are almost right. A light year is a distance as well as a time period. But the assumptions are kinda wonky. Assumption 1: There is only one kind of light in the universe -- the kind we know. Assumption 2 -- Nothing in the universe can affect the speed of light or keep it from traveling in a straight line. Assumption 3 -- We would be able to actually track a beam of light traveling for a year or more. So. basically, the word light year is just a kind of a shortcut scientists use to prove they aren't as clueless as they seem. In reality, of course, it is a meaningless term. No human being or machine could ever survive a journey that lasted 1 light year.

Answer 4

A light year is not a measure of time, it's a measure of distance. It's the distance will travel in a vacuum in one year. It's about 5.88 trillion miles, so you really can't compare the two, it's like trying to compare a minute to a mile.

Answer 5

A light year is a distance, not a time. It is the distance that light travels in one year.

Answer 6

It's a measurement of distance, not time. Light travels at approx 186,000 miles per second. So if you multiply 186,000
miles by the number of seconds in 365 days, that's a light year.

Answer 7

Its still a year. A light year is a measure of distance- the distance that light would travel in a year.

At 186,000 miles per second

and

525,960 seconds (give or take a couple) in a year,

light travels 97,828,560,000 miles a year.

Answer 8

A light year is not a measurement of time.
It is a measurement of distance - the distance light travels in one Earth year.
It works out to about 9.5 trillion kilometers.

Answer 9

They are equal......A light year is the distance light travels in one year....and a year is a year long!

Answer 10

assuming you arent stupid, im guessing you mean how long does a year last if you are going at the speed of light compared to being on earth. if thats your question i dont know, i only know that its considerably longer. if it isnt your question than the other people who answered are right.

and to the first guy that answered, its 525,600 minutes not seconds