When was the light year discovered?

Answer 1

what is the name of make electricity? =========================== The light-year was not 'discovered'. It's a definition that was 'invented' when scientists began to work with distances that were too great to be described with the units of length that were previously available. For example, when the distance to the nearest star was measured, a paper had to be published to report the finding, but it would have been pretty awkward to report that the nearest star is about 24,635,900,000,000 miles from us. The 'light-year' was adopted in order to discuss 'astronomical' distances, being the distance that light will travel in a year. Using this unit, the nearest star is about 4.2 light-years from us, which is a lot easier to talk about. Today, scientists are routinely observing things that are billions of light-years distant from us, and the light-year itself is becoming too small and inconvenient, and other, larger units have been defined. Like the 'Parsec', which is about 32 light-years, or about 188,300,000,000,000 miles. And the 'Megaparsec', which is a million parsecs, or about 32 million light-years, or about 188,300,000,000,000,000,000 miles. You get the idea.

Answer 2

The concept of the light year as a unit of length to measure astronomical distances dates back to the 16th century. The term itself was first used in the 19th century to describe the distance light travels in a year, providing a useful way to express vast cosmic distances.

Answer 3

In 1838, Friederich Bessel coined the term light-year when he used it to describe the distance between the Earth and the star 61 Cygni.