as in worlds
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-years
The company has stripped away the complexity, allowing anyone to snap spectacular images of galaxies and nebulae hundreds of light-years away without wrestling with multi-component setups requiring serious technical chops – all wrapped in Vaonis's trademark minimalist design.
—
New Atlas, 26 Jan. 2026
The protostar, called EC 53, lies about 1,300 light-years from Earth and is surrounded by a disk of gas and dust where planets and other bodies are taking shape.
—Samantha Mathewson, Space.com, 26 Jan. 2026
Ryan Gosling stars as Ryland Grace, a middle-school teacher tapped for a mission to a solar system 12 light-years away to save humanity before a catastrophe wipes out Earth.
—Clare Mulroy, USA Today, 24 Jan. 2026
The culprit was a magnetar, a super-magnetized neutron star located about 50,000 light-years away.
—Phil Plait, Scientific American, 22 Jan. 2026
Betelgeuse’s reddish tint can be spotted gleaming from the Orion constellation, situated about 650 light-years away from Earth.
—Ashley Strickland, CNN Money, 20 Jan. 2026
What seems light-years away is just around the corner.
—Jennifer Weil, Footwear News, 20 Jan. 2026
The beehive is one of the closest clusters to Earth (approximately 600 light-years away) and one of the youngest (around 600 to 700 million years old).
—Michele Laufik, Martha Stewart, 13 Jan. 2026
New Atlas, 26 Jan. 2026
The protostar, called EC 53, lies about 1,300 light-years from Earth and is surrounded by a disk of gas and dust where planets and other bodies are taking shape.
—Samantha Mathewson, Space.com, 26 Jan. 2026
Ryan Gosling stars as Ryland Grace, a middle-school teacher tapped for a mission to a solar system 12 light-years away to save humanity before a catastrophe wipes out Earth.
—Clare Mulroy, USA Today, 24 Jan. 2026
The culprit was a magnetar, a super-magnetized neutron star located about 50,000 light-years away.
—Phil Plait, Scientific American, 22 Jan. 2026
Betelgeuse’s reddish tint can be spotted gleaming from the Orion constellation, situated about 650 light-years away from Earth.
—Ashley Strickland, CNN Money, 20 Jan. 2026
What seems light-years away is just around the corner.
—Jennifer Weil, Footwear News, 20 Jan. 2026
The beehive is one of the closest clusters to Earth (approximately 600 light-years away) and one of the youngest (around 600 to 700 million years old).
—Michele Laufik, Martha Stewart, 13 Jan. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for light-years
Noun
-
Scattered throughout the sellout crowd at the last worlds before the Milan Cortina Olympics were the equally conspicuous rainbow flags that for nearly 50 years have signified pride within the LGBTQ+ community.—
Dallas Morning News,
Dallas Morning News,
29 Jan. 2026
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Through a reassessment of habitable zone models and boundary calculations, this study expands the range of worlds considered potentially habitable, revealing new targets in the search for life.—
Victoria Corless,
Space.com,
29 Jan. 2026
Noun
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From 2013 to 2019, the Dark Energy Survey (DES) team repeatedly imaged a large section of Earth’s southern sky to collect the positions, colours and shapes of around 150 million galaxies.—
Nature magazine,
Scientific American,
31 Jan. 2026
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These findings suggest that strong, organized magnetic fields may have been common in the early universe, especially in dusty starburst galaxies like Arp 220's ancient counterparts.—
Robert Lea,
Space.com,
30 Jan. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Light-years.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/light-years. Accessed 2 Feb. 2026.
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