Light Year to Mile Converter

About this conversion

The light-year (ly) is a unit of length in the astronomical, commonly used for distances to nearby stars and sizes of galaxies. The mile (mi) belongs to the imperial / US customary and is typically found in measurements related to road distances in the US and UK and running race distances. By definition, one light-year is the distance light travels in one Julian year in a vacuum, approximately 9.461 × 10¹⁵ meters. One mile is exactly 1,760 yards, or approximately 1.609 kilometers. The conversion factor between these two units is 5878606438399.745: multiplying any value in ly by this number gives the equivalent in mi. For example, 10 ly equals 58786064383997.4531 mi. Going the other direction, 1 mi equals 0 ly. The mile descends from the Roman mille passuum ('thousand paces'). The statute mile of 5,280 feet was fixed in England in 1593.