We live in a world defined by inches, feet and miles (or centimeters, meters and kilometers, if you prefer), and it’s not difficult for most of us to comprehend sizes and distances given in these ...

Have you ever thought to yourself, boy, I sure do wish the Starfield HUD displayed interstellar distances in light years instead of astronomical units? If your answer to this question is "yes," then ...

“Space is big,” wrote Douglas Adams, and he wasn’t kidding. Familiar units of distance, like miles and kilometers, quickly become too unwieldy to use in cosmic discussions. After all, we don’t say the ...

The light-year is an indispensable unit of measurement for anyone trying to understand outer space. Get a group of astronomers talking, and you’ll hear them say “light-years” about as often as you ...