how fast is the speed of light in a vacuum
Speed of light The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted c, is a universal physical constant important in many areas of physics. Its exact value is 7008299792458000000♠299,792,458 metres per second (approximately 300,000 km/s (186,000 mi/s)[Note 3]). It is exact because by international agreement a metre is defined to be the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299792458 second.[Note 4][3] According to special relativity, c is the maximum speed at which all conventional matter and hence all known forms of information in the universe can travel. Though this speed is most commonly associated with light, it is in fact the speed at which all massless particles and changes of the associated fields travel in vacuum (including electromagnetic radiation and gravitational waves). Such particles and waves travel at c regardless of the motion of the source or the inertial reference frame of the observer. In the special and general theories of relativity, c interrelates space and time, and also appears in the famous equation of mass–energy equivalence E = mc2.[4]
Light-year The light-year is a unit of length used to express astronomical distances. It is about 9.5 trillion kilometres or 5.9 trillion miles.[note 1] As defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a light-year is the distance that light travels in vacuum in one Julian year (365.25 days).[2] Because it includes the word "year", the term light-year is sometimes misinterpreted as a unit of time, as a year is a unit of time equivalent to approximately 365 days.