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<blockquote data-quote="sjmiller" data-source="post: 3195016" data-attributes="member: 17262">Your numbers are pretty accurate from memory!&nbsp; 1 light year (ly) = 9.4607 x 10^12 km or 63,240 Astronomical Units (AUs) or 0.3066 parsecs.&nbsp; An AU is, as you will recall, the average distance from the Sol to Sol-3 (aka the Sun to the Earth).&nbsp; Neptune is 30.06 AU from the Sun, and Pluto averages about 39 AU.&nbsp; The Kuiper Belt should be about 30 AU to over 50 AU.&nbsp; Pluto's orbit, being elliptical, is as little as 29.7 AU and as great as 49.7 AU.&nbsp; Gee, sometimes it is fun being an astronomy geek!As for your system problem, like many others have said, it should be vastly smaller than 2 ly across.&nbsp; A distance of 24 light hours would make a good system.&nbsp; You could go as big as 36 light hours and still have a huge system with lots of planets.&nbsp; If you have some planets that don't orbit on the same elliptical plane as the rest, you can have more planets.&nbsp; At that point you have to start worrying about orbital &quot;wobble&quot; due to the plants coming in at odd angles, but it should not be too bad.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="sjmiller, post: 3195016, member: 17262"] Your numbers are pretty accurate from memory! 1 light year (ly) = 9.4607 x 10^12 km or 63,240 Astronomical Units (AUs) or 0.3066 parsecs. An AU is, as you will recall, the average distance from the Sol to Sol-3 (aka the Sun to the Earth). Neptune is 30.06 AU from the Sun, and Pluto averages about 39 AU. The Kuiper Belt should be about 30 AU to over 50 AU. Pluto's orbit, being elliptical, is as little as 29.7 AU and as great as 49.7 AU. Gee, sometimes it is fun being an astronomy geek! As for your system problem, like many others have said, it should be vastly smaller than 2 ly across. A distance of 24 light hours would make a good system. You could go as big as 36 light hours and still have a huge system with lots of planets. If you have some planets that don't orbit on the same elliptical plane as the rest, you can have more planets. At that point you have to start worrying about orbital "wobble" due to the plants coming in at odd angles, but it should not be too bad. [/QUOTE]

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