I don’t really understand it, could someone explain in basic terms?
Are we saying if a star is 120 million lightyears away, light from the star would take 120 million years to reach us? Meaning from the pov of time on earth, the light left the star when the earth was still in its Cretaceous period?
In: 292
It’s just like saying you live 5 minutes away from someone, it’sit’s all measuring distance by time.
The difference is you benefit at least 2 ways.
1. You avoid measuring space in such astronomically large numbers that you lose relative scope
What’s the difference between 400 trillion km and 700 trillion km to you?
2. You put a maximum speed limit in distance of things in space relative to us.
With light years you can do quick math based on how fast a spacecraft is compared to the speed of light to get a rough idea of travel time.
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