When we leave the solar system, we find our star and its planets are just one small part of the Milky
Way galaxy. The Milky Way is a huge city of stars, so big that even at the speed of light, it would
take around how many years to cross it?
It would take around 100,000 years to cross the Milky Way galaxy at the speed of light.
The Milky Way galaxy is estimated to have a diameter of about 100,000 light-years.
The speed of light in a vacuum is approximately 186,282 miles per second or 299,792 kilometers per second.
To calculate the time it would take to cross the Milky Way at the speed of light, we need to divide the diameter of the galaxy by the speed of light.
Using miles as the unit of measurement, we have:
100,000 light-years × 5,878,499,817,194 miles (conversion factor) ≈ 587,849,981,719,400 miles
587,849,981,719,400 miles ÷ 186,282 miles per second ≈ 3,153,600,000 seconds
Since there are approximately 31,536,000 seconds in a year, we can divide the total seconds by this number:
3,153,600,000 seconds ÷ 31,536,000 seconds per year ≈ 100,000 years
Therefore, at the speed of light, it would take approximately 100,000 years to cross the Milky Way galaxy.