<P> ESA's Gaia satellite, which launched on 19 December 2013, is intended to measure one billion stellar distances to within 20 microarcseconds, producing errors of 10% in measurements as far as the Galactic Centre, about 8000 pc away in the constellation of Sagittarius . </P> <P> Distances expressed in fractions of a parsec usually involve objects within a single star system . So, for example: </P> <Ul> <Li> One astronomical unit (au), the distance from the Sun to the Earth, is just under 6994499999999999999 ♠ 5 × 10 parsecs . </Li> <Li> The most distant space probe, Voyager 1, was 6996660000000000000 ♠ 0.000 66 parsecs from Earth as of August 2016 . It took Voyager 1 39 years to cover that distance . </Li> <Li> The Oort cloud is estimated to be approximately 0.6 parsecs in diameter </Li> </Ul> <Li> One astronomical unit (au), the distance from the Sun to the Earth, is just under 6994499999999999999 ♠ 5 × 10 parsecs . </Li>

Average distance of earth from sun in parsec