How do you convert a distance (km) into a scientific notation?
For example the distance from the earth to the sun is 150,000,000 km It gets cumbersome to work with such long numbers, so measurements such as these are often written using a shorthand called scientific notation. Each zero in the numbers above represents a multiple of 10. For example, the number 100 represents 2 multiples of 10 (10 x 10 = 100). In scientific notation, 100 can be written as 1 times 2 multiples of 10: 100 = 1 x 10 x 10 = 1 x 10^2 Scientific notation is a simple way to represent large numbers because the 10’s exponent (2 in the previous example) tells you how many places to move the decimal of the coefficient (the one above) to obtain the original number. In our example, the exponent 2 tells us to move the decimal to the right two places to generate the original number: 1 x 10^2 = 100 Therefore, using scientific notation, the distance from the earth to the sun is 1.5 x 108 km. Also note that in scientific notation, the base numeral is always represented as a single digit
