Question

Neptune's average distance from the sun is 4.503×10^9 km. mercury's average distance from the sun is 5.791×10^7 km. About how many times farther from the sun is Neptune than Mercury? Write your answer in scientific notation.

Answer 1

Given ,

Neptune's average distance from the sun is

`4.503*10^9\text{ km}`

Mercury's average distance from the sun is,

`5.791*10^7\text{ km}`

Hence to find out the value by which Neptune is farther from the Sun than the Mercury, we can take take the ratio of the two values. That is,

`(4.503*10^9)/(5.791*10^7)=0.7776*10^(9-7)=77.76`

Thus, the Neptune is 77.76 times farther than the Mercury.