You always hear scientists saying how many lightyears there are between us and other planets but what r they n how many of our years are in one...?
2007-03-29 00:15:59 · 28 answers · asked by Dolly 5 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Lightyear is a measure of distance - it's the distance light travels in one year. So it's quite a long way. Not sure how far exactly, but really, REALLY far.
The light from the sun takes approximately 8 minutes to get to Earth, so you are actually seeing the sun as it was 8 minutes ago ..... it could have exploded 5 minutes ago, and we wouldn't know for another 3 minutes.
And when you look at distant stars...you're actually looking further back in time....this is too much....I'm going to have to lie down...can't take this all in....
2007-03-29 00:26:57 · answer #1 · answered by Tufty Porcupine 5 · 15⤊ 2⤋
A lightyear is in laymans terms;
an object is 1 lightyear away.
It is possible for you to travel at the speed of light (according to Einstein this is impossible (E=MC2) but let's not get into that)
So if you walk/run/fly towards this object at the speed of light, it would take you 1 year (or 365.2425 days, or 52.1775 weeks, or 8,765.82 hours, or 525,949.2 minutes, or 31,556,952 seconds) to get there.
In this 1 year you would cover a distance of 9,460,730,472,580.8 km or 5,879,000,000,000 statute miles(if you were in the vacum of space, air restistance has to be taken into account & thus shortens this distance somewhat)
So therefore, a lightyear is the best way of shortening 9,460,730,472,580.8 km so that it can be easily stated in astronomical formulations.
2007-03-29 20:25:56 · answer #2 · answered by mexican_seafooduk 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
A light year is the distance that light travels in a year. It is not a length of time. If you want to work it out in miles take the speed of light (approx. 186,000 miles per second) and multiply as follows:
186,000 x 60 x 60 x 24 x 365. It's quit a long way.
The nearest star to the earth (apart from the sun) is approximately 4 light years away. In other words it would take 4 years to get there travelling at the speed of light.
The sun is roughly 8 light minutes way (93,000,000 miles).
2007-03-29 07:52:19 · answer #3 · answered by andy muso 6 · 2⤊ 1⤋
Light years is a measure of DISTANCE not of TIME. Light travels at approximately 300 million metres per second. The distance between one planet and another is millions of kilometres away which can mean billions of metres away.
Example : Planet A is 6 X 10^17 metres away from Planet B. Light will take 600000000000000000/300000000 seconds to reach Planet B from Planet A which works out to be 2000000000s which is 2000000000/(60*60*24*365) = 63.4 light years away (approx.).
I hope you now understand it.
2007-03-29 07:30:53 · answer #4 · answered by mr_maths_man 3 · 2⤊ 1⤋
Lightyears Is the distance Light travels in one earth year which is like 9.42 Trillion miles.
2007-03-29 10:41:01 · answer #5 · answered by huhwhatcaca 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋
A lightyear is something travelling at the speed of light for one of our years.
2007-03-29 08:28:43 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋
A lightyear is the distance that light travels in one year. Here is a simple formula for figurine it out.
186,000 mi/sec x 60 sec/min x 60 min/hr x 24 hr/day x 365 days/yr
The 186,000 is the speed of light per second, if you start from there one can figure out the total speed of lightin one year.
Also this web page can help you and it gives refrence to diffrent objects in space and their range in lightyears.
http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/questions/question19.html
Good luck.
2007-03-29 07:26:22 · answer #7 · answered by Sam M 2 · 2⤊ 1⤋
A lightyear (in spite of the word "year" being in its name) is a measure of distance, not time. It is the distance that light is able to travel in one year. It is about 6 trillion miles.
2007-03-29 07:25:21 · answer #8 · answered by dewcoons 7 · 7⤊ 2⤋
A light year is not a measure of time, but that of distance. One light year refers to the distance travelled by a light ray in one year through vacuum.
2007-03-29 09:29:25 · answer #9 · answered by Raider 3 · 2⤊ 1⤋
years that lost a few pounds.
no, lightyears are measurements of distance, like mile or kilometer. but the numbers they measure are so long, it would take light one whole year just to get from one point to the next.
light travels 299,792,458 meter per second, which is 186,282 miles in one second. so a lightsecond would be 186,262 miles. now multiply by 60 you get lightminute. Sunlight from the sun takes 8.5 minutes to get to us. now multiple 60 then 24 then 365 to get a lightyear.
thats 5,878,499,810,000++ miles.
2007-03-29 07:24:17 · answer #10 · answered by DainBramaged 3 · 7⤊ 2⤋