Subtract Numbers in Scientific Notation Practice

Question

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Question
The average distance from Earth to Mars is 2.25×108
km, and the distance from Earth to Neptune is 4.3514×109
km. How much farther is Neptune from Earth than Mars? Express your answer in scientific notation. Do not round your answer

Answer 1

To find out how much farther Neptune is from Earth than Mars, we need to subtract the distance from Earth to Mars from the distance from Earth to Neptune.

Given:

• Distance to Mars: \( 2.25 \times 10^8 \) km
• Distance to Neptune: \( 4.3514 \times 10^9 \) km

Let's subtract the two distances:

\[ 4.3514 \times 10^9 - 2.25 \times 10^8 \]

To perform this subtraction, we need to express both numbers with the same power of 10. We can express \( 2.25 \times 10^8 \) with a power of \( 10^9 \):

\[ 2.25 \times 10^8 = 0.225 \times 10^9 \]

Now we can rewrite the subtraction:

\[ 4.3514 \times 10^9 - 0.225 \times 10^9 \]

This can be simplified to:

\[ (4.3514 - 0.225) \times 10^9 = 4.1264 \times 10^9 \]

Therefore, the distance from Earth to Neptune minus the distance from Earth to Mars is:

\[ \boxed{4.1264 \times 10^9} \text{ km} \]