as in world
a huge physical or conceptual distance
my sister and I are close in age, but personality-wise, there are light-years between us
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Recent Examples of light-year
Then, in September 2015, twin LIGO observatories (one in Louisiana and one in Washington) picked up a signal lasting a fraction of a second—the death spiral of two black holes a billion light-years away.
—
Nathaniel Janowitz,
Wired News,
12 June 2026
Just 25 light-years from the solar system, Vega is 455 million years old, a tenth of the age of our sun, but 40 times brighter.
—
Jamie Carter,
Forbes.com,
8 June 2026
Even with a small telescope, the seemingly mundane star is revealed as a gorgeous, colorful pair about 400 light-years away.
—
Mike Lynch,
Twin Cities,
7 June 2026
The star system in question, HD 81809, lies in the constellation Hydra and is roughly 90 to 101 light-years from Earth.
—
Christopher McFadden,
Interesting Engineering,
6 June 2026
See All Example Sentences for light-year
Nathaniel Janowitz,
Wired News,
12 June 2026
Just 25 light-years from the solar system, Vega is 455 million years old, a tenth of the age of our sun, but 40 times brighter.
—
Jamie Carter,
Forbes.com,
8 June 2026
Even with a small telescope, the seemingly mundane star is revealed as a gorgeous, colorful pair about 400 light-years away.
—
Mike Lynch,
Twin Cities,
7 June 2026
The star system in question, HD 81809, lies in the constellation Hydra and is roughly 90 to 101 light-years from Earth.
—
Christopher McFadden,
Interesting Engineering,
6 June 2026
See All Example Sentences for light-year
Recent Examples of Synonyms for light-year
Noun
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London — Democratic leaders must answer to voters, lawmakers and other world leaders.
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Such designations are typically invoked for major events like presidential inaugurations or summits of world leaders and trigger a massive federal security response.
Noun
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In one Zooniverse project related to the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, volunteers will visually inspect and annotate 2D slitless spectroscopic images from the telescope to observe the redshift of millions of galaxies — the main method used for measuring the expansion of the universe.
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Thus, dark matter annihilation is only a factor when this mysterious stuff is densely clustered in a region like the heart of a galaxy.
Cite this Entry
“Light-year.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/light-year. Accessed 26 Jun. 2026.
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