Light Years

Most recent answer: 10/22/2007

Q:
How many Earth years are in light-years?
- Sherilyn (age 10)
Ostrovsky Middle School, Wood-Ridge
A:

Sherilyn -

Here’s the thing... A light year isn’t actually an amount of time - it’s a distance. A light year is the distance that light can travel in one Earth year. A light year is almost 6000 trillion miles! To get an idea of how far this really is, check out .

-Tamara

(published on 10/22/2007)