Renewal of the partnership between the Eugenides Foundation Library and Lloyd's List

The basic unit of measurement for distances in our solar system is the astronomical unit (AU), which is equal to the average distance from Earth to the Sun—that is, approximately 150 million km. Neptune, for example, the planet farthest from the Sun, is about 4.5 billion km or 30 AU away from it. And yet, our solar system extends even further. What, then, are its limits? In other words, how far must we travel from the Sun before we can claim that we have escaped its influence and are now in interstellar space?