Question

The distance to the moon is 238,900 miles. How is this expressed in scientific notation?

a. .00238 X 10^5

b. 2.389 x 10^5

c. 2.3 X 105

d. 2.389 x 10-5

Answer 1

Answer is b because scientific notation is a variable between 0-10 to the power of a number depending on how many digits it has.

A number from 1-10 in 238,900 miles is 2.389 so the base variable is 2.389. The decimal got moved from 238900. to the left. It moved 5 places.

It went like this;

1 left: 23890.0

2 left: 2389.00

3 left: 238.900

4 left: 23.8900

5 to the left: 2.38900

So the scientific notation is 2.389^5

Answer 2

The answer would be b