On average, the planet Pluto's distance from the sun is about 3,670,000,000 miles. How do you express this distance in scientific notation?

1 Answer
Nov 17, 2016

In scientific notation, Pluto's distance from the sun is 3.67xx10^9 miles.

Explanation:

In scientific notation, we write a number so that it has single digit to the left of decimal sign and is multiplied by an integer power of 10.

Note that moving decimal p digits to right is equivalent to multiplying by 10^p and moving decimal q digits to left is equivalent to dividing by 10^q.

Hence, we should either divide the number by 10^p i.e. multiply by 10^(-p) (if moving decimal to right) or multiply the number by 10^q (if moving decimal to left).

In other words, it is written as axx10^n, where 1<=a<10 and n is an integer.

Her, we intend to write the large number 3,670,000,000 in scientific notation. To write 3,670,000,000 in scientific notation, as we have a whole number, decimal is at the end the number (as 3 is in fact 3.0) and we will have to move the decimal point nine points to left, which literally means dividing the large number by 10^9.

Hence in scientific notation 3,670,000,000=3.67xx10^(9) (note that as we have moved decimal nine points to the left, to compensate, we are multiplying by 10^9.

Hence, in scientific notation, Pluto's distance from the sun is 3.67xx10^9 miles.