Question: how can you measure light years?

Gaia Andreoletti answered on 11 Mar 2016:

It is not really my area of expertise but i do know a dirty little secret: scientists don’t actually measure astronomical distances in light years. Rather, they measure them in a unit called the Parsec , and only convert to light years when they’re talking to the general public. This was presumably originally in the hope that light year would be a bit more meaningful (a parsec is about 3.26 light years).