How do I convert Lightyears to Miles?
Multiply by about 5.88 trillion. A light year is 5,878,625,373,183.6 miles – the distance light covers in a Julian year of 365.25 days – so 2 light years is about 11.76 trillion miles.
For a quick guess, call it 6 trillion. That's 2% high, which is nothing next to the uncertainty in most star distances anyway.
The Andromeda galaxy, about 2.5 million light years away, is roughly 14.7 quintillion miles off.
What is a lightyear?
A lightyear is a unit of measurement used in astronomy to describe vast distances in space. It represents the distance that light travels in one year, which is approximately 5.88 trillion miles or 9.46 trillion kilometers. The term "lightyear" is derived from the fact that light, which travels at a speed of about 186,282 miles per second (299,792 kilometers per second), can cover an incredible distance in the span of a year.
Light has a finite speed, so a galaxy a billion lightyears away is seen as it was a billion years ago. That is how astronomers look back at the early universe – the farther the galaxy, the older the picture.
What is a mile?
A mile is an imperial and US unit of length, exactly 1,609.344 meters. The word comes from the Latin mille passus, 'a thousand paces', where a pace was two steps of a marching legionary.
A mile is equivalent to 1760yds or 5280ft.
Road distances in the US and UK are signed in miles, while nearly every other country uses kilometers. Aviation and shipping use the nautical mile instead, which is a different length (1,852 meters).