Question

How many miles wide is our solar system?

Answer 1

Hint: Facts related to space and the solar system has always fascinated everyone. Measurement of the distance of anything from the earth to whatever is related to space and solar system are all hypothetical and approximate values. The width of a solar system is measured in Astronomical Units (AU).

Complete answer:
For measurement of the width of our solar system, we need to first take a reference, i.e. which object should be taken as the starting point and which one the end (for end-to-end measurement). E.g. if we take the outermost planet as the reference then the width of the solar system will be $$80$$ AU. The distance between the earth and the sun is $$93,000,000$$ miles. So in total, it will be $$7,440,000,000$$ miles i.e. more than $$7$$ billion miles. The end of the solar system means it is an area where the Sun’s gravitational effect is not felt or not seen.
We can also measure the distance in light-years. A light-year is a distance which light travels in one year.
$$1$$ light-year = number of seconds in $$1$$ year $\times$ number of miles or kilometers light travels in $$1$$ second
Now, if we take the endpoint as the clouds where the activity of comets are seen (Oort cloud) which is $$2$$ light-years away from the sun, then the width of the solar system will be 4 light-years i.e. distance light travels in 4 years.
In $$1$$ slight travels $$186000$$ miles, therefore in $$4$$ light-years it will travel $$23,514,500,000,000$$ miles ($$23.5145$$ trillion miles)

Note: The distance or width of any object in space is measured either in Astronomical units or in light-years. Depending on the question, we need to convert it into given units. All the values are almost approximate.