Not a physicist but it seems to be part of astrophysics culture, and it's a good... | Hacker News

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lou1306 on Oct 24, 2024 | parent | context | favorite | on: How do merging supermassive black holes pass the f...

Not a physicist but it seems to be part of astrophysics culture, and it's a good "base measure" for interstellar space (i.e., if something is < 1pc away it's likely within your same star system). A parsec is ~3.26 lys, for context.

hnuser123456 on Oct 24, 2024 [–]

At the stellar density in our region of the galaxy, sure. The density is hundreds of times higher closer to the center.

lou1306 on Oct 25, 2024 | [–]

Yeah it is obviously informed by our local environment, the very definition of parsec is tied to the structure of our solar system.

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