Megaparsecs to Yards (Mpc to yd)

1 megaparsec equals 3.374538038×10²² yards (rounded).

1 megaparsec = 3.374538038×10²² yards

How to convert megaparsecs to yards

To convert megaparsecs to yards, multiply the number of megaparsecs by 3.374538038×10²². The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply yards by 2.963368582×10⁻²³ (rounded).

yards = megaparsecs × 3.374538038×10²²

Example: 10 megaparsecs = 3.374538038×10²³ yards.

About these units

Megaparsec (Mpc)

AstronomicalCurrent unit

One million parsecs (about 3.26 million light-years). Used for distances between galaxies.

Galaxies are too far apart for the parsec to be comfortable, so astronomers multiply it by a million. A megaparsec, symbol Mpc, is 1,000,000 parsecs, or roughly 3.26 million light-years and about 3.09 times ten to the twenty-second power meters. It has no article of its own on Wikipedia and is treated as one of the parsec's multiples, alongside the kiloparsec for distances inside a galaxy and the gigaparsec for the largest cosmic structures.

Neighboring galaxies sit at a fraction of a megaparsec: the Andromeda Galaxy is about 0.78 Mpc away, while the Virgo Cluster lies near 16.5 Mpc. Cosmologists also use the unit inside the Hubble constant, quoted in kilometers per second per megaparsec, which expresses how fast distant galaxies recede for each megaparsec of separation. The Milky Way itself is roughly 34 kiloparsecs across, a useful reminder of how much larger intergalactic distances are.

1 megaparsec = 3.085677581×10²² meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Parsec; Wikipedia: Megaparsec (redirects to Parsec)

Yard (yd)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

3 feet or 36 inches, exactly 0.9144 meters. Used for sports fields, fabric and short distances in the US and UK.

Yard descends from the Old English gerd or gyrd, meaning a branch, stave or measuring rod. It first appears in the late seventh-century laws of Ine of Wessex, though there it names a tax unit, the yardland. Around 959 to 963 King Edgar ordered that the measure held at Winchester be used throughout his realm, the earliest record of a prototype. A story that Henry I fixed the yard as the distance from his nose to his thumb is later folklore, and the true origin, whether pace, cubit or waist, remains speculative.

Britain defined the Imperial Standard Yard in 1824 as the distance between two marks on a brass rod at 62 degrees Fahrenheit. A fire in 1834 damaged the standard, a replacement was made in 1845, and the Weights and Measures Act 1855 recognized it. The 1959 international agreement then fixed the yard at exactly 0.9144 meter. Today it measures American and Canadian football fields, association football pitches and cricket pitches, appears on UK road signs for short distances, and is still used to sell fabric in the US and UK.

1 yard = 0.9144 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Yard; Wikipedia: Inch; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

Related conversions

See all length units.