whats a light year?

Light years are used to measure distances in space. Their large size allows us to talk about huge distances in space using smaller numbers. For example, it's much easier to say three light years than 17,637,000,000,000 miles. One light year is 5,879,000,000,000 miles or 9,461,000,000,000 kilometers. A light second is 186,000 miles.

Moon is 0.0000000406 light years away or 238,857 miles away from Earth. It takes 1.3 seconds for light to travel to the moon.

Sun-0.0000016 light years or 92,900,000 miles. It takes eight minutes for light to travel to the sun.

Pluto- 0.0005 light years or 3,067,548,000 miles

Proxima Centauri- 4.2 light years or 24,690,000,000,000 miles

The milky way (our galaxy)- 100,000 light years or 587,900,000,000,000,000 miles

Andromeda Galaxy (nearby galaxy)- 2,500,000 light years or 14,697,500,000,000,000,000 miles

Edge of the universe- 20,000,000,000 light years or 117,580,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles

Distances