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Week 6: Planets galore: the contents of the Milky Way

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This figure shows the time it takes for light to cover various distances in the Galaxy. Note the distances are not drawn to scale – you would need a really big screen if it were! If the distance from the Earth to the Moon is represented by 1 cm on your screen, your screen would need to be about 13 million km wide to show the distance across the Milky Way Galaxy to scale!

 4  The light year