One Light Year from Earth

[Arkasha]

Can someone please tell me. Travelling from Earth, at light speed, at which point in our solar system is a light year?
Thanks.

[RobF]

5hrs and 40 minutes to Pluto at light speed, so after a year you'll be a LONG way outside our solar system. 1/3 of the way to nearest star, and a long way from the nearest McDonalds drive through Arthur.....:D

[astroron]

One lightyear will take you aproximatly one quarter the distance to Proxima Centaurii,which is 4.2 light years distance.
The hypothisised Oort cloud goes out to one light year, or 64.000 Astronomical Units (AU), or Ten trillion Kilometers.

It will take the Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977 many thousands of years to reach one light year distance traveling at around 46.000kms per hour.

I hope that helps
Cheers:thumbsup:

[Screwdriverone]

Umm Rob,

Dont you mean 1/4 of the way to the nearest star?

Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light years away....;)

Arthur, 1 light year is approximately 9.46 × 10 to the power of 12 kilometres or about 6 TRILLION Miles.

Quite a long way out and certainly not within our solar system anymore.

Cheers

Chris

[Screwdriverone]

Beat me by THAT much Ron.....:)

[astroron]

Snap Chris ;)
I beg to differ on one light year NOT being in our Solar System ,if as is believed that the Oort cloud exsists,then they must belong to our Solar System as they are gravitationly bound to our Sun, and if the theory is correct they where somehow either pushed out of the inner Solar System or are debris left over from the formation of the Solar System.
Most of the long period Comets are thought to originate from there.
Cheers:thumbsup:

[Screwdriverone]

Good point Ron,

I stand corrected, I didnt think of anything other than the orbits of the planets and the minor planets rather than what is under the influence of our star.

I was going to suggest the Heliopause is more like the boundary then? But hmmm, maybe not, I just found a nice picture that represents where everything is expected to live in relation to all this. Take a look.

Cheers

Chris

[astroron]

Chris, We are on the same wave length, I also have that picture and was contemplating posting it, But you have saved me the effort:D
Cheers:thumbsup:

[Screwdriverone]

Wooooh, Spoooky Ron.

QUICK, take a snap over your shoulder with the flash on and see if you can catch any orbs! LOL,

Great minds eh?

Cheers

Chris

[Nico13]

Good one Rob :rofl::rofl::rofl:

[BPO]

Besides our sun... :P

[Arkasha]

Thanks guys. Just trying to get a handle on the scale of things. Certainly a long way by any stretch of the imagination!

Cheers
Arthur

[erick]

Remember to pack lunch before you set off.........



Our problem is we are too small. Now if each of us was about 10 ly tall, our galaxy would be much much easier to understand and visit. But the rest of the Universe, unfortunately not. Almost like trying to imagine the size of the European bailouts! :D

[RobF]

Umm, yes 1/4 of way to nearest star. Must have thought was 1/3 due to severe time dilation effects......:whistle::nerd:

[astroron]

Rob, Stop trying to "Wormhole" out of it :P
Cheers:thumbsup:

[RobF]

Yes, you're right Ron - then again, it's all relative(ity)......;)

[psyche101]

May I ask, would you (or anyone that cares to answer) consider the orbit of Pluto to be the limit of our solar system, or the extent of the Oort cloud?

Light travels at 186,000 miles per second (300,000 kilometers per second). Therefore, a light second is 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers). A light year is the distance that light can travel in a year, or:

186,000 miles/second * 60 seconds/minute * 60 minutes/hour * 24 hours/day * 365 days/year = 5,865,696,000,000 miles/year
A light year is 5,865,696,000,000 miles (9,460,800,000,000 kilometers).

Pluto's average orbit places it at around 5,874,000,000 km from the Sun.

This of course does not take into account time dilation and length contraction, for a person say travelling on a spaceship which is moving at 99% of c (The speed of light) this person on this hypothetical spaceship would experience one year for what an observer on earth would experience as approximately 22 years.

Suffice to say the limit of one light year extends far beyond our solar system, and other factors apply.

[astroron]

Strange :confused2: I thought I had answered the question:shrug:
See post #3.
Cheers:thumbsup:

[psyche101]

So did post #2, more directly so I might add, we are all adding bits and pieces, community spirit and all that.

I have just added some detail, and expanded the information. Not all people love math. You do not think that is helpful and is it something that should be avoided?

Would you care to offer a solution to the question I asked, what would you consider the extent of the Solar System?

[astroron]

Would you care to offer a solution to the question I asked, what would you consider the extent of the Solar System?

I thought I did:shrug:
One light year, or to the edge of the Oort Cloud about one quarter the way to Proxima
Centuri.

My opinion is that anything under the gravitational influence of the Sun is in our Solar System.

PS
There is no sign post saying this is the end of the Solar system

[psyche101]

That sounds more than fair enough! The Oort could does seem to define the gravitational reaches of our system, I was interested to see if people find Pluto, The Hills Cloud, or the Oort could the limit. Personally I would agree with you. It is just that if the OP was asking where one light year in our solar system might be, that the complexities of the Oort could might be something that person has yet to discover, and be amazed by. As such, the reference may have been lost :thumbsup:

Maybe a sign is a good idea because we cannot see those little dark comets all the way out there - maybe one of these?

http://images.wikia.com/hitchhikers/images/e/ef/Restaurant_at_the_End_Universe_cove r.jpg

:lol:

Cheers.

[astroron]

All is Good:)
Every little bit of information helps;)
Cheers :thumbsup:

[Dave2042]

This reminds me of my Honours thesis long ago, which was on cluster galaxies. I ran into essentially this problem only much worse.

The definition of a cluster member is that it is gravitationally bound to the cluster - simple enough in theory. However, looking at a particular galaxy 'near' a cluster and deciding whether it is a member is very difficult. There was an agreed measure, but it was obviously a wild approximation. I don't know if anyone's improved on this since.

[psyche101]

That does sound like a real head scratcher, if two clusters are in alignment in their relative postion to our vantage point, and we are all heading in the same direction, it might take hundreds of thousands, I guess even millions of years before the expansion of space make the motion apparent enough to distinguish the two. Thanks for the brain food! I am going to look a bit deeper into this. Redshift of the individual members would be the way to determine this would be my first guess?

[OneOfOne]

Basically at 1 light year, you are at the edge of the theoretical limit of the solar system, virtually on the edge of the Oort cloud. So you are pretty much in interstellar space.