Final answer:
The correct scientific notation of the distance 149,600,000 km is 1.496 × 108 km.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question asks to express the distance from the Sun to the Earth in scientific notation. The Earth revolves around the Sun, which is approximately 150 million kilometers away. A distance of 149,600,000 km can be written as 1.496 × 108 km in scientific notation, where the decimal point has been moved to come after the first significant digit, with the exponent indicating how many places the decimal point was moved. Thus, the nearest star to the Earth is not 149,600,000 km from the Sun as suggested by the student, but Proxima Centauri is in fact approximately 39,900,000,000,000 km away.