1
: a unit of length in astronomy equal to the distance that light travels in one year in a vacuum or about 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion kilometers)
2
: an extremely large measure of comparison (as of distance, time, or quality)
seems like light-years ago
has light-years more talent
two minutes and yet light-years away from the crowded village—
Suzanne Patterson
Suzanne Patterson
Examples of light-year in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
IceCube has detected neutrinos created in several places, such as the Earth’s atmosphere, the center of the Milky Way galaxy and black holes in other galaxies many light-years away.
—Doug Cowen, Discover Magazine, 27 Apr. 2024
The map, painted in infrared wavelengths, reveals new details in a stretch of our galactic home 500 light-years wide.
—Dennis Overbye, New York Times, 19 Apr. 2024
Some 3,800 light-years away from Earth, in the Southern Hemisphere constellation Norma, lies a massive cloud of gas and dust.
—Christian Thorsberg, Smithsonian Magazine, 18 Apr. 2024
This stellar nursery is about 450 light-years away from Earth.
—Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 11 Apr. 2024
Something set off some unique gravitational waves from 650 million light-years away.
—Morgan Haefner, Quartz, 8 Apr. 2024
What turned out to be hard for Venus will only be harder for exoplanets many light-years away.
—Elise Cutts, WIRED, 7 Apr. 2024
The end result was a series of overlapping spheres with slightly denser shells measuring roughly a billion light-years across — the distance BAOs had time to travel before freezing.
—Charlie Wood, Quanta Magazine, 4 Apr. 2024
Putting down a mere 10% would set a buyer back $100,000, which is light-years away from what an average American has in savings.
—Sydney Lake, Fortune, 2 Apr. 2024
Doug Cowen, Discover Magazine, 27 Apr. 2024
The map, painted in infrared wavelengths, reveals new details in a stretch of our galactic home 500 light-years wide.
—Dennis Overbye, New York Times, 19 Apr. 2024
Some 3,800 light-years away from Earth, in the Southern Hemisphere constellation Norma, lies a massive cloud of gas and dust.
—Christian Thorsberg, Smithsonian Magazine, 18 Apr. 2024
This stellar nursery is about 450 light-years away from Earth.
—Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 11 Apr. 2024
Something set off some unique gravitational waves from 650 million light-years away.
—Morgan Haefner, Quartz, 8 Apr. 2024
What turned out to be hard for Venus will only be harder for exoplanets many light-years away.
—Elise Cutts, WIRED, 7 Apr. 2024
The end result was a series of overlapping spheres with slightly denser shells measuring roughly a billion light-years across — the distance BAOs had time to travel before freezing.
—Charlie Wood, Quanta Magazine, 4 Apr. 2024
Putting down a mere 10% would set a buyer back $100,000, which is light-years away from what an average American has in savings.
—Sydney Lake, Fortune, 2 Apr. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'light-year.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Light-year.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/light-year. Accessed 3 May. 2024.
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