 |  |
A light-year, or light year, also abbreviated ly, was the distance light traveled in vacuum in one Galactic Standard Year. 3.258 light years made up a parsec, which was a unit of distance that was important in locating star systems in the known galaxy.[2]
Since the Galactic Standard Calendar year was 368 days, a Galactic Standard Light Year would have been 9,531,961,160,601,600 meters.
Behind the scenes[]
The above calculation assumes that the Galactic Standard Day, Hour, etc. and Meter are equal to Earth's, and results in an in-universe light year 0.75% longer than the real-world one.
It is also possible that Galactic days (and hours etc.) were 0.75% shorter than their Earth equivalents, and that the light years are the same length. (see below)
The length of a light year depends on the exact length of one year. On Earth, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) uses a Julian year of 365.25 days, while other sources may use a Gregorian year of 365.2425 days, or another year altogether.
| Source | year (days) | light year (meter) | light year (miles) |
|---|---|---|---|
| IAU | 365.25 | 9,460,730,472,580,800 | 5,878,625,373,184 |
| Gregorian | 365.2425 | 9,460,536,207,068,020 | 5,878,504,662,190 |
| 365.242199 | 9.460 528 4 ×1015 | 5.878 499 81 ×1012 | |
| Yahoo | 365.2411‡ | 9.460 5 ×1015 | 5,878,482,164,161 |
| Coruscant | 368 | 9,531,961,160,601,600 | 5,922,886,070,723 |
‡ While Yahoo separately reports a year length of 365.24220 days, its rounding of the light year length to five digits results in a year length of ~365.2411 days.
