How to calculate one light year?

Answer 1

You measure distance. The earth orbits the sun. The orbit has a radius of 93 million miles and a diameter of 186 million miles. At both sides of the orbit, a telescope measures the angle between the earth and a star. Astronomers then use Trigonometry to calculate the distance between the earth and the star. They have the diameter of 186 million miles and two angles. After they calculate the distance, they know the distance of a particular star. Since people tend to get lost looking at a page full of zeroes, they divide the giant number by another giant number, the distance light travels in a year. They were able to find the distance to a few Cepheid variables. They discovered their brightness varies with their distance. For stars beyond the distance they can measure using trigonometry, they use nearby Cepheid variables.

Answer 2

Light year is the distance of light travels in one year.

Light travels at about 300,000 km per sec/186,000 miles per sec. There are 31,556,926 seconds in a year.

31,556,926 * 300,000 = 9,500,000,000,000 km/5,865,696,000,000 miles (i round it off a bit)

9,500,000,000,000 km/5,865,696,000,000 miles = 1 light year.

Answer 3

1. Find planet
2. Find distance of planet from Sun. Try "how far is xxxxx from the Sun" in wikianswers where xxxxx is the planet of your choice.
3. Take the average distance in Km and divide by 300,000. This will give you the distance in light seconds.
4. Divide by 60 to give light minutes
5. Divide by 60 to give light hours
6. Divide by 24 to give light days.
7. Divide by 365.25 to give light years.

Answer 4

A light year is the distance that light can travel in one year, which is approximately 9.461 trillion kilometers or 5.878 trillion miles. To calculate one light year, you can multiply the speed of light (approximately 299,792 kilometers per second or 186,282 miles per second) by the number of seconds in a year (approximately 31,557,600 seconds).

Answer 5

Light Years aren't measured, they are just the distance light travels in a year. This is easily worked out if you know the speed of light (distance travelled = speed x time taken)

Answer 6

60 x 60 x 24 x 365/366(leap year) x 186,000

Answer 7

There is no formula. Light year is the distance as in how many years it takes a star's light to reach its message toward Earth.

Answer 8

You can use an online converter to get an accurate calculation, but a light year is roughly ten trillion kilometres (10,000,000,000,000 km).

Answer 9

Light speed per second*seconds in a year