Final answer:
To express the number 48,500 using a power of 10, in scientific notation, it is written as 4.85 × 10^4.
Step-by-step explanation:
The number 48,500 can be expressed as a power of 10 using scientific notation. To convert into scientific notation, we count the number of places the decimal point needs to move to get a number between 1 and 10. For 48,500, the decimal point would move 4 places to the left, from the end of the number to just after the 4, making it 4.85. So, 48,500 expressed using a power of 10 is written as 4.85 × 104.