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Put simply this is the DISTANCE traveled by a beam of light through vacuum in one earth year.

For instance if you go outside and shine a torch up into the night sky, a the light form your torch will shoot up into the sky at the speed of light which is:

299,792,458 metres per second.

Thus, after one hour the light form your torch will have traveled 1,079,252,848.8 kilometers.

and after one year it will have traveled 9,460,730,472,580.8 kilometers

We use light years to measure distance in astronomy because the numbers are so big.

It is easy to understand that one of the nearest stars (apart form the Sun) to us is Sirius and this is 8.6 light years away (the light we see now left it 8.6 earth years ago), while Betelgeuse is 427 light years away.

More information:

Light travels at the rate of:

186,000 miles per second, or

11,160,000 per minute, or

669,600,000 miles per hour, or

16,070,400,000 per day, or

5,865,696,000,000 miles in one year (one light year).

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