ELi5: How does the whole light year thing work? How does something happen a long time ago that we know of yet we can still see it and have to wait for it to happen again (like those exploding star things on tt)
In: 4
There are two different things at play here.
A “light year” is a unit of distance (not time), defined as the distance light travels in a year. So it doesn’t “work” or do anything or explain anything by itself, it’s just a measure of a certain distance (about 5.88 trillion miles).
A few other commenters have done a great job of answering your real question, I just wanted to make that part clear.
Latest Answers