Convert Light Years (ly) to Astronomical Units (AU)

The light year is a unit of length in the Astronomical system of units. It uses the symbol ly.

Often confused with a unit of time as it contains the word "year", it is actually defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) as the amount of distance that light travels in a vacuum in one Julian year (365.25 days).

Using the speed of light (299,792,458 m/s or 'c') and the Julian year (as apposed to the Gregorian year which is 365.2425 days), we can equivalate 1 light year as 9,460,730,472,580,800 metres or ≈ 9.46 trillion kilometres.

The astronomical unit is a unit of length and is used in the Astronomical system of units and denoted by the symbol au.

It represents the average distance between the Earth and the Sun which is approximately 150 million kilometres (or 93 million miles).

It's used mostly to express distances within our Solar System.