Question

1. The speed of light is 3 x 10^8 meters per second. The sun is approximately 230,000,000,000 meters from Mars. How many seconds does it take for sunlight to reach Mars?

2.If the sun is approximately 1.5 x 10^11 meters from Earth, what is the approximate distance from Earth to Mars? (Note: Use 230,000,000,000 from previous question, which was the sun's distance from Mars.)

Answer 1

1. 7.6*10^2

2. 8*10^10

Explanation:

1. (2.3*10^11)/(3*10^8)

0.76*10^3

The answer above isn’t in boundaries of 1-10 but smaller than 10 so you move it a 10th to the right and now you have to take one exponent away because you did that so you end up with:

7.6*10^2 0r 760 secs

2. (2.3*10^11)-(1.5*10^11)

(2.3-1.5) *10^11

0.8 *10^11

The ‘0.8’ isn’t in boundaries of 1-10 but less than 10 so you move it a 10th to the right which will be 8. Now you gotta do the exponent thing (explained earlier). You should end up with:

8*10^10 or 80 billion

Answer 2

1. About 760 seconds.

Explanation:

Using a calculator, I figured 3 x 10^8 and got 300,000,000. Then, I divided 230,000,000,000 by 300,000,000 to get 759.9 seconds.

Answer:

2. About 80,000,000,000 kilometers. (80 billion.)

Explanation:

Again using a calculator, I figured 1.5 x 10^11 and got 150,000,000,000. Then, I subtracted 150,000,000,000 from 230,000,000,000 (230,000,000,000 - 150,000,000,000.) And got an answer of 80 billion.