So a light year is the distance light travels in a year?

Question

OK, then, how long is the year used for this measurement? 365 days? 365.25 days? Or, is it the exact time for one revolution of the Earth around the sun, and if so, how long is that?

Answer 1

The distance light can travel in one year, which is 9,500,000,000,000 kilometers..
...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."....

Answer 2

Earth takes 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds to make one revolution around the Sun. That is why the Gregorian calendar is so complex. 365.25 days per year is accounted for by having a leap year with an extra day every 4 years, but that is not quite right, so leap years are omitted in centuries not evenly divisible by 4. 1600, 2000 and 2400 are leap years among centuries, but 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not, and 2100, 2200 and 2300 will not be leap years. A light year is usually rounded off, so that the difference between the actual year and the precise one is not indicated.

Answer 3

Drew - your question incorporates an errors - "... the gap that mild travels in one mild year" - a lightyear is a distance no longer a time, so the question would desire to examine " ... to shuttle one mild year". a mild year is (in around figures) 6 x 10^12 miles (6 million million miles, or 6 trillion miles). The quickest any area craft has travelled is approximately 60,000 mph, performed by way of utilising a gravitational "slingshot" around Saturn & jupiter, sio if we could get a spacecraft as much as that velocity (and in some situations advance its velocity to counteract the gravitational pull of the sunlight as we left the image voltaic equipment it would take (6 x 10^12)/(6 x 10^4) hours = 10^8 hours; 300 and sixty 5 days = 8760 hours, so if we divide 10^8 by way of (8.seventy six x 10^3) we get 11, 415 years, and that's barely a million mild year. in all probability no longer a stable concept to hold your breath.

Answer 4

According to Wikipedia, the IAU defines the light-year using the mean Julian year of exactly 365.25 days, where each day is exactly 24 hours, or 86,400 seconds. Thus, a light-year is the distance light travels in 365.25×86400 = 31,557,600, which is 9,460,730, 472,580,800 meters exactly.

Answer 5

The exact time period is completely unimportant since the distance is close to 6 trillion miles, a few miles one way or the other will not make any practical difference to anyone.