Can anyone please explain to me what a light year is? I mean, if a galaxy is 2 million light years away, will it take me 2 million years to travel there?

qfrontier,

Can anyone please explain to me what a light year is? I mean, if a galaxy is 2 million light years away, will it take me 2 million years to travel there?

A light year is the distance that light travels in one year.

1 light year = 9,460,800,000,000 km

If a galaxy is 2 million light years away, it would take light 2 million years to reach the galaxy.

Tom

If you were traveling at the speed of light wouldn`t time stop?
:)

Length just as time is relative: the light (that travels at light speed) has a total distance of zero to overcome when it wants to travel two lightyears for us. For light, it takes 0 seconds to do so, for us it takes two years.

Bye!

Crisp

Hehe, so in one sense ,the Andromeda galaxy is really quite close?
It`s just an illusion that it`s `<i>2.2 billion ly</i>` away because we are on the earth <i>waiting</i> for the light to arrive...?
;)
(dont bother to answer this!)

"(dont bother to answer this!)"

Okay, then I won't :D

Bye!

Crisp

So light doesnt travel that distance, does it like transports itself from one location to another until eventually it reaches another destination?

Originally posted by qfrontier
So light doesnt travel that distance, does it like transports itself from one location to another until eventually it reaches another destination?
No. light could actually be observed to travel that distance from the frame of reference that calculates those light-years distance. But for light itself (it's frame of refence) that distance is contracted to zero and time dilated to infinity. that means, for light itself, it goes anywhere in no-time. that is what Crisp pointed out.