Question

The radius of Earth is 6.37 x 10^6 m. The average Earth-Sun distance is 1.496 x 10^11 m. How many Earths would fit between Earth and the Sun if they are separated by their average distance? Use an order-of-magnitude calculation to estimate this number. Then, determine an exact answer and express it in scientific notation with the correct number of significant digits.

Answer 1

Using an order-of-magnitude calculation, approximately 10^4 or 10000 Earths would fit between Earth and the Sun. The exact answer is around 23.47 Earths.

Step-by-step explanation:

To estimate the number of Earths that would fit between Earth and the Sun, we can divide the Earth-Sun distance by the radius of Earth. Using an order-of-magnitude calculation, the Earth-Sun distance is approximately 10^11 m and the radius of Earth is approximately 10^7 m. Therefore, the number of Earths that would fit is roughly 10^11 divided by 10^7, which is 10^4 or 10000 Earths.

To determine the exact answer, we can divide the Earth-Sun distance (1.496 x 10^11 m) by the radius of Earth (6.37 x 10^6 m). This gives us 23.47. Therefore, approximately 23.47 Earths would fit between Earth and the Sun.

Learn more about Earth-Sun distance