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
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
However, the recent team managed to catch a supernova in the act, just 22 million light-years from Earth (which is not so far as far as galaxies are concerned).
—Isaac Schultz / Gizmodo, Quartz, 28 Mar. 2024
Magnetic Fields The new image—published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters—shows a magnetic field structure very similar to that of the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy, a supergiant elliptical galaxy around 54 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo.
—Jamie Carter, Forbes, 27 Mar. 2024
The Swift Go 14 proved much brighter, and the Acer, Asus, and HP were light-years ahead in color coverage.
—PCMAG, 27 Mar. 2024
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
However, the recent team managed to catch a supernova in the act, just 22 million light-years from Earth (which is not so far as far as galaxies are concerned).
—Isaac Schultz / Gizmodo, Quartz, 28 Mar. 2024
Magnetic Fields The new image—published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters—shows a magnetic field structure very similar to that of the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy, a supergiant elliptical galaxy around 54 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo.
—Jamie Carter, Forbes, 27 Mar. 2024
The Swift Go 14 proved much brighter, and the Acer, Asus, and HP were light-years ahead in color coverage.
—PCMAG, 27 Mar. 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 23 Apr. 2024.
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