How is a light year used?

Answer 1

Because to say a star is 4.3 light-year away easier than saying it's 40,680,000,000,000 kilometers away. Granted you could say it's 40.68 trillion kilometres but that method never really caught on.

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Expressing the conventional units for distance in light-year does not only provide a clear grasp of the idea of the distance that is long long way away, but it is also more convenient when you express the quantity in writing.

Answer 2

A light year is a unit of astronomical distance, representing the distance that light travels in one Earth year. It is used to measure vast distances in space, such as between stars and galaxies. Scientists use light years to help understand the scale of the universe and to communicate these distances in a more comprehensible manner.

Answer 3

A light year is the distance light travels in a year, going at about 186,000 miles per second. It is used to measure the distances in space, because they are too large to use standard measurements such as miles or kilometres.

Answer 4

A light year is a distance. It is the distance light will travel in one earth year. About 9 trillion kilometres.
The separation between stars is huge and between galaxies even greater so we need a very long unit to make some sense of these distances, even so we are still talking in many many light years, sometimes billions.

Answer 5

Light years are very convenient for expressing the enormous distance involved with space and astronomy. People have a realistic conception of the light year used to measure spatial distances.

1.0 light year = 9.5 x 10^15 m = 9.5 x 10^12 km = 5.9 x 10^12 miles

Answer 6

the distance are too great to measure in earth units

Answer 7

A light year is a unit of measure applied to the great distances between objects in space. A light year is the distance that light travels in one year (in a vacuum).

Answer 8

Its a distance measurement used to measure the distance between stars (within the local galaxy)

or between galaxies.

Answer 9

A light year is a distance (how far light can travel in one year ... about 6 trillion miles.

It's used because its a convenient distance measurement for the space between stars.

Answer 10

LIght years, as well as parsecs, are typically used for distances between stars or galaxies.