Question

Sara and Sam are each working on a science project in which they need to research the individual masses of the nine planets (including the dwarf planet Pluto as the ninth planet). Sara completes her data for the planets' masses in kilograms while Sam's data is in milligrams.

Look at picture.


Approximate how many times greater Saturn's mass is than Mercury's.

A) 200,000
B) 2,000,000
C) 2,000
D) 20,000

Answer 1

2000 times

Explanation:

Given

Sara:

`Mercury = 3.302 * 10^{23`

`Saturn = 5.685 * 10^{26`

Sam:

`Mercury = 3.302 * 10^{29`

`Saturn = 5.685 * 10^{32`

To determine the number of times, the mass of Saturn is greater than the mass of Mercury, we simply do the following:

`Times = (Saturn)/(Mercury)`

Using Sara's measurement; this gives:

`Times = (5.685 * 10^(26))/(3.302 * 10^(23))`

Apply law of indices

`Times = (5.685 * 10^(26-23))/(3.302)`

`Times = (5.685 * 10^3)/(3.302)`

`Times = 5.685/3.302 * 10^3`

`Times = 1.72 * 10^3`

Approximate

`Times = 2 * 10^3`

`Times = 2000`