Many people have some misconceptions about the light year, in fact, the light year is not a unit of time, it is a unit of length. It mainly represents the distance of light traveling in a straight line in a vacuum for one earth year, which is equivalent to about 9,460 billion kilometers.
1 light-year is equal to how many years the Earth has
The statement that 1 light year = how many years is false, the Earth's year is approximately equal to 365 days, but the light year is not the same as the year, although it is also carried that the year is actually a unit of length, which is unique to astronomy. Some people want to ask why this unit is used, mainly because the scope of the universe is too large, and it is too inconvenient to measure it in meters and kilometers, so it is more troublesome to read or record.
Therefore, astronomers came up with a good idea and created a new unit, that is, the light year, which is quite easy to use and easy to use, greatly reducing the workload and making the related work much simpler.
Light-years of specific research
Before 1676, it was believed that light did not need time to travel, because the speed of light was too fast for humans to capture it. However, in 1676, the Danish scientist O.C. Romer believed that the propagation of light takes time, and later discovered that when Jupiter is farther away from the Earth, it takes longer to observe it. However, although many scientists insisted that the propagation of light took time, it was not widely accepted and eventually gave up on the idea.
In the first half of the 18th century, the scientific community gradually began to accept the idea that the speed of light is limited, and began to continue to study, in 1728 the famous British astronomer James Bradley measured the speed of light is 301,000 km/s, and then in 1838, the German astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel first proposed the basic concept of light years, and used this unit in measurement. Gradually, Lightyear began to be widely recognized and used.
Can a person walk a light year in a lifetime?
The unit of light year looks a little out of reach, and there are always people who like to compare things that can be touched around them, for example, some people are curious about how long a 1 light year rocket will fly, and the calculated result will take 30,000 years. If a person can live to be 100 years old and keep walking forward, walking one meter per second, then the distance he can walk is 3,154,000 kilometers. This means that no matter how you walk, you can't walk a light-year.