Convert Light Years (ly) to Parsecs (pc)

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 parsec is a unit of length and is used in the Astronomical system of units. It is denoted by the symbol pc.

It is equal to 3.26156 ly (light years) which is approximately 31 trillion kilometres (19 trillion miles). It's used to measure huge distances to objects and planets outside of our Solar System.

It was first brought into use by Herbert Hall Turner (a British Astronomer) in 1913 and was invented to use in calculations of astronomical distances to make it easier in calculations using raw data.