Tuesday 25 May 2010

A nice explaination of what a light year is



It's easy when somebody says "Oh that's 4 light years away" but do you actually understand how far a light year is ? A light year is how far light can travel unimpeded in one solar year or 365 days and the common mistake is that some people think it's a measurement of time but it's not it's a measurement of distance ....

The moon for instance is 1 light second away from us, the sun is 8 light minutes from us... now expand that up to a light month ? The voyager space probe which was launched in 1977 is only 16 light minutes away which is roughly twice the distance from here to the Sun.... Anyway take a look at the video it explains it much better than I ever could .... fascinating stuff :)



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