Astronomy   View all facts   Glossary   Help
abstraction > mathematical concept > unit > length unit
Next unitluminous intensity unit    Upunit    Previous unitfrequency unit   

length unit comparison table
Subject has accuracy has consequence has proposer is an acronym for is an instance of has proposal date has approval date has equivalent has name origin has unit has approval agency has value in SI unit has uncertainty has definition has equation has symbol has historical origin is named after
angstrom    non SI unit  10-10 meters     A unit of length used when expressing wavelengths. Å Anders Jonas Angstrom (1814-1874)
astronomical unit    non SI unit      1 au = 1.49598 × 1011 m, approximately The radius of a circular orbit in which a body of negligible mass, and free of perturbations, would revolve around the Sun in 2π / k days, where k is the Gaussian gravitational constant. This is slightly less than the semi-major axis of the Earth's orbit. AU  
Bohr radius  Hartree radius1928      0.0000000019 × 10-10 mA unit of length based on the radius of the first Bohr orbit of hydrogen 1.a0 Niels Bohr
fermi    length unit 195610-13 cm     A unit of distance used for describing nuclear distances just as the ångström is used for atomic distances.   Enrico Fermi
light-year    length unit        The distance light travels in a vacuum in 1 year. 1 lt-yr = 9.4605 × 1012 km = 0.307 pc (c = 299792.46 km s-1 = 186274 miles s-1). (1 lt-min ≈ 0.13 AU.) ly  
meter fixes the speed of light in vacuum at exactly 299792458 m·s-1 Syteme Internationalebase SI unit 1960   11th CGPM  length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second mchosen in 1791 by the French Academy of Sciences as 10-7 of the length of the meridian through Paris from pole to the equator 
micron    length unit  104 Å     A unit of length. μ  
mile    length unit        The mile employed in this book is the statute mile, equal to 5280 feet.    
nautical mile    length unit  1.15 statute miles     A unit of length.    
parsec  Bessel and Meadows length unit184019222.062648 × 105 astronomical unitsparallax second International Astronomical Union  The distance at which one astronomical unit subtends an angle of 1 second of arc. 1 pc = 206,265 AU = 3.086 × 1013 km = 3.26 light-years. pc  
solar radius    radius    length unit   A unit of length based on radius of Sun    

Next unitluminous intensity unit    Upunit    Previous unitfrequency unit