What is a microinch?
A microinch (µin) is the inch with the SI prefix micro, meaning one millionth, so 1,000,000µin make one inch.
The microinch is mostly seen in surface finish. US drawings give a part's roughness (Ra) in microinches, and a typical machined finish is 63µin, or 1.6µm.
A microinch is a millionth of an inch, which is exactly 0.0254 micrometers or 25.4 nanometers. Outside the US surface finish is given in micrometers instead.
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.