The distance that light travels in 1 year (a light year) is 5.88 times 10 Superscript 12 miles. If a star is 4.6 times 10 Superscript 7 light years from Earth, what is this distance in miles?

Enter your answer in scientific notation. Round the coefficient to two decimal places.
I think you have to divide and I got 1.28 multiply by 10 to the power of 5 because you need to get the miles per year but it says it's wrong. Help please

1 answer

First of all, online "^" is used to indicate an exponent, e.g., x^2 = x squared, and “*” is used to indicate multiplication to avoid confusion with “x” as an unknown.
Also when multiplying/dividing, exponents are added/subtracted respectively.

5.88*10^12 * 4.6*10^7 = 27.048*10^19