Light-hours to Centimeters (lh to cm)

1 light-hour equals 107,925,284,880,000 centimeters exactly.

1 light-hour = 107,925,284,880,000 centimeters

How to convert light-hours to centimeters

To convert light-hours to centimeters, multiply the number of light-hours by 107,925,284,880,000. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply centimeters by 9.265669311×10⁻¹⁵ (rounded).

centimeters = light-hours × 107,925,284,880,000

Example: 10 light-hours = 1.079252849×10¹⁵ centimeters.

About these units

Light-hour (lh)

AstronomicalCurrent unit

The distance light travels in an hour (about 1.08 billion km). Pluto is about 4.8 light-hours from the Sun.

Reaching the outer planets takes light hours rather than minutes, and the light-hour is the matching unit. Equal to 3,600 light-seconds, it is exactly 1,079,252,848,800 meters, or about 1.08 billion kilometers. Like the other light-time units it is informal, defined entirely by the fixed speed of light and the length of the SI second rather than by any standards body, and it appears mainly in astronomy outreach and in descriptions of deep-space missions.

Neptune orbits at about 30 astronomical units, which with light taking roughly 499 seconds per unit works out to somewhat over four light-hours. Pluto, at an average of 34.72 astronomical units, is about 4.81 light-hours from the Sun. The Voyager 1 probe passed 23 light-hours from Earth and the Sun by 2025 and is expected to reach one light-day, 24 light-hours, around late 2026. Beyond that scale the light-day, light-week and light-year take over.

1 light-hour = 1,079,252,848,800 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Light-hour; Wikipedia: Light-minute; Wikipedia: Astronomical unit

Centimeter (cm)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One hundredth of a meter. Used for body measurements, clothing and everyday objects.

Scientists, rather than shopkeepers, gave the centimeter its place. In 1832 Carl Friedrich Gauss proposed a system of absolute units built on length, mass and time, choosing the millimeter, milligram and second. In 1873 a committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, whose members included James Clerk Maxwell and William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), recommended the centimeter, gram and second instead. That CGS system dominated physics for decades, until the metre-kilogram-second system replaced it in the mid-twentieth century and led to SI.

CGS units proved awkward for rooms and buildings, which run to hundreds of centimeters, but the centimeter itself never went away. It is still the everyday unit for height, clothing and small objects, and it appears in map scales and rainfall reports. An adult fingernail is roughly one centimeter wide, and a milliliter is defined as exactly one cubic centimeter. An inch is exactly 2.54 centimeters. The CGS system itself survives mainly in theoretical physics and astrophysics, where Gaussian units are still common.

1 centimeter = 0.01 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Centimetre-gram-second system of units; Wikipedia: Centimetre; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

Related conversions

See all length units.