When it comes to measuring time, the metric prefixes are commonly used for periods less than one second long, but longer than that it becomes the mess that is minutes, hours, days and beyond.
But have you ever wondered what the proper, SI, power-of-1000 equivalences are? Here’s are some handy conversions.
| SI unit | Rough equivalence |
|---|---|
| kilosecond | 16.67 minutes (quarter of an hour) |
| megasecond | 11.57 days (third of a month) |
| gigasecond | 31.71 years (third of a century) |
| terasecond | 31.71 millennia (what did you expect?) |
| petasecond | 31.71 million years (eighth of a galactic year) |
| exasecond | 31.71 billion years (2.3 times the age of the universe) |
And in reverse:
| Weird unit | Exact SI equivalence |
|---|---|
| minute | 60 seconds |
| hour | 3.6 kiloseconds |
| day | 86.4 kiloseconds |
| week | 604.8 kiloseconds |
| month (30d) | 2.592 megaseconds |
| year (365d) | 31.536 megaseconds |
| decade | 315.36 megaseconds |
| century | 3.1536 gigaseconds |
| millennium | 31.536 gigaseconds |
Some fun, suspiciously astronomically-related facts:
- Earth sidereal day: 86.164 kiloseconds
- Neptunian year: 5.197 gigaseconds
- Galactic year: approx. 7.25 petaseconds
- Age of the Universe: 435.17 petaseconds
These values work identically for light-years, e.g. 1 light-year = 31.536 megalight-seconds.
Now go call the Millenium Falcon the “Gigasecond Falcon.” Go on, I dare you.
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