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Astronomers usually use light years to measure the distance between stars. They do not use kilometers or miles because the number would be so large as to be meaningless.

Say light travels 300,000 kilometers a second. Multiply that by 60 seconds, then by 60 minutes, then by 24 hours, then by 365 and 1/4 days. Now try to work with that number. 1 light year is easier to work with.

1 light year = 5.87849981 × 1012 miles

1 light year = 10 trillion kilometers (exactly 9.5 × 1012 km

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