Basically it is used to measure the distances between any two objects beyond our solar system. The distance in trillions is simply to great for the human mind to grasp and overburdens computers when doing measurements.įinally there is the Parsec.

A parsec is also equivalent to approximately 3.26 light years (the journey distance if you travelled at the speed of light for three years and three months). A parsec a unit of distance equal to about 19 trillion miles (more than 30 trillion km) is more closely related to how astronomers go about the business of figuring out the size of the. The nearest star is about 4.22 light years away. The parsec is a unit of length equivalent to around 20 trillion (20,000,000,000,000) miles, 31 trillion kilometres, or 206,264 times the distance from the earth to the sun. Multiplied out that means light travels roughly 6 trillion miles in one year. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. A light year is the distance light travels in one year. The AU is used strictly to measure distances in our solar system. It is exactly 648,000/ astronomical units, or approximately 30.9 trillion kilometers.

You will use the formula: 1 parsec 3.26156. It is the rough distance from the sun to the earth but since our distance to the sun varies from about 92.5 million miles to 93.5 million miles it is not exact. A parsec is a unit of distance used in astronomy. For this program, youll be doing a very common conversion: parsecs to light-years, and light-years to parsecs. The AU or astronomical unit is the shortest distance of the three.

Miles to parsec unit