How Far Is a Light Year?
June 3rd, 2008 by DavidA light year is the distance light travels in a year, or about 6 trillion miles. The space shuttle traveling at top speed (17,000 mph) would take about 40,000 years to travel one light year. To put things in perspective, the closest star is 4.3 light years away. Now that’s some serious elbow room!
July 25th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
It’s not 6 trillion miles, it’s about 6 billion miles, if using english billions, which is a million million miles to a billion, or 60 billion miles if using american billions. The exact number is actually 5,869,713,600,000 miles a year, though not 5,865,696,000,000, as it is commonly mistaken for as it is not exactly 365 days in a year, but 365 and a 1/4 years.
January 6th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
It is 6 trillion. Look at the number genius. The first 3 zero’s is hundred, the next 3 numbers in 100 thousand, the next 3 is 100 million, the next 100 billion, and the final number is trillion.
January 11th, 2009 at 10:50 pm
Actually Chris and Josh are right. I should have used numbers instead of letters as a billion can be 10^9 or 10^12 depending on whether you are using “long scale” or “short scale” conventions. Let the record show that 6 x 10^12, or 6,000,000,000,000 miles is approximately correct.