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The TU (for time unit) is a unit of time defined as 1024 μs for use in engineering. The svedberg is a time unit used for sedimentation rates (usually of proteins). It is defined as 10 −13 seconds (100 fs). The galactic year, based on the rotation of the galaxy and usually measured in million years. [2]
In the International System of Units (SI), the unit of time is the second (symbol: s). It has been defined since 1967 as "the duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom", and is an SI base unit. [12]
Clock time and calendar time have duodecimal or sexagesimal orders of magnitude rather than decimal, e.g., a year is 12 months, and a minute is 60 seconds. The smallest meaningful increment of time is the Planck time ―the time light takes to traverse the Planck distance , many decimal orders of magnitude smaller than a second.
The Planck time, denoted t P, is defined as: = = This is the time required for light to travel a distance of 1 Planck length in vacuum, which is a time interval of approximately 5.39 × 10 −44 s. No current physical theory can describe timescales shorter than the Planck time, such as the earliest events after the Big Bang. [ 30 ]
A value of 9.460 536 207 × 10 15 m found in some modern sources [15] [16] is the product of a mean Gregorian year (365.2425 days or 31 556 952 s) and the defined speed of light (299 792 458 m/s). Another value, 9.460 528 405 × 10 15 m, [17] is the product of the J1900.0 mean tropical year and the defined speed of light.
A light-minute is 60 light-seconds, and so the average distance between Earth and the Sun is 8.317 light-minutes. The average distance between Pluto and the Sun (34.72 AU [5]) is 4.81 light-hours. [6] Humanity's most distant artificial object, Voyager 1, has an interstellar velocity of 3.57 AU per year, [7] or 29.7 light-minutes per year. [8]
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A light-year is the distance light travels in one Julian year, around 9461 billion kilometres, 5879 billion miles, or 0.3066 parsecs. In round figures, a light year is nearly 10 trillion kilometres or nearly 6 trillion miles. Proxima Centauri, the closest star to Earth after the Sun, is around 4.2 light-years away. [89]