How long does light take to cross that?
Light covers 30 cm in a nanosecond. Grace Hopper used to hand out 30 cm wires to make the point.
Almost exactly a to the Moon
384,400 km is further than 2 of the 7 references on this page.
Reference figures are measurements and are rounded; the unit conversion behind them is exact.
| Reference | Size | Yours ÷ theirs | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| one light-nanosecond | 0.0003 km | 1,282,188,125× | About one foot |
| once around the Earth | 40,075 km | 9.59× | Light does this 7.5 times a second |
| to the Moon | 384,400 km | 1× | 1.28 light-seconds |
| to Mars at closest | 54,600,000 km | 1/142 | About 3 light-minutes |
| to the Sun | 149,597,871 km | 1/389 | 8.3 light-minutes |
| to Neptune | 4,500,000,000 km | 1/11,707 | 4.2 light-hours |
| to Proxima Centauri | 40,000,000,000,000 km | 1/104,058,273 | 4.25 light-years |
Worth knowing
- Light takes 1.28 seconds to reach the Moon, so a conversation with an astronaut there has a 2.6-second round trip.
- The Sun you can see left it 8 minutes and 20 seconds ago. If it went out, we would not know until then.
Frequently asked
How far is a light-year?
Exactly 9 460 730 472 580 800 metres — an exact number, because both the speed of light and the Julian year are defined values.
Why do astronomers use light-years?
Because the numbers in metres are unusable, and because the unit carries information: looking four light-years out is looking four years back.