Question

The average distance of the Moon from Earth is about 384,400 kilometers. Write this number in scientific notation.

Answer 1

`3.844 * 10 ^ 5`

Explanation:

Scientific notation is of the form
`N * 10^a`. Where N is a number
`1 \leq N < 10`.

So in this case we need to move the decimal place to the left, in order to create such a number.

By moving the decimal place to the left we get: 3.84400

We moved the decimal to the left 5 times, so our value of
`a = 5` and
`N = 3.84400`

Therefore scientific notation is:
`3.844 * 10 ^ 5`