Final answer:
When the Milky Way is scaled down to a 10-cm diameter grapefruit, the distance to the Andromeda Galaxy would be about 2.5 meters, which can be rounded to option B) 3 m.
Step-by-step explanation:
If we represent the Milky Way Galaxy as the size of a grapefruit with a 10-cm diameter, the question asks how far away the Andromeda Galaxy would be at this scale. The actual diameter of the Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years, and the distance to the Andromeda Galaxy is approximately 2.5 million light-years. This means Andromeda is about 25 times the diameter of the Milky Way away from us.
In scaling terms, if the Milky Way's 100,000 light-year diameter shrinks to 10 cm, then one light-year at this scale would be 0.0001 cm. Calculating the scaled distance to Andromeda (2.5 million light-years * 0.0001 cm/light-year), we get 250 cm, which is 2.5 meters. Therefore, at the grapefruit scale for the Milky Way, the distance to the Andromeda Galaxy would be approximately 2.5 meters or option B) 3 m. Note that rounding slightly up to the nearest meter gives us a realistic and understandable estimate for the purposes of this analogy.