Powers of Ten

Every 10 seconds, the view will be ___ times farther away and the field of view will be ___ times wider.

• 1; 1

• 10; 10

• 100; 100

100 meters is the same as 

• 10¹

• 10²

• 10³

• 10³

1 kilometer (km) is the same as

• 1,000 meters

• 10³ meters

How many kilometers is 10,000 meters?

• 10⁴ km

• 1 km

• 10 km

Scientific notation is a way of writing very large or very small numbers. A number is written in scientific notation when a number between 1 and 10 is multiplied by a power of 10. For example, 650,000,000 can be written in scientific notation as 6.5 ✕ 10⁸. How is 1 million meters written in scientific notation? 

• 1.0 x 10¹ m

• 1.0 x 10⁶ m

• 1.0 x 10¹⁰ m

1,000 million meters or 1.0 x 10⁹ m is the same as

• 1,000,000,000 m

• 1,000,000 m

What is the distance of 1 light year?

• 1.0 x 1¹⁶ m

• 1.0 x 10¹⁶ km

• 1.0 x 10¹⁶ m

How many light years away would one need to be in order to completely visualize the Milky Way galaxy?

• 100 light years (10¹⁸ meters)

• 1,000 light years (10¹⁹​ meters)

• 10,000 light years (10²⁰​ meters)

• 100,000 light years (10²¹​ meters)

Upon heading back in toward Earth, how many seconds does it take zoom in 10 times closer?

• 1 second

• 2 seconds

• 10 seconds

Back to scientific notation: 1 centimeter (cm) is equivalent to how many meters (m)?

• 1.0 x 10^-2 m

• 1.0 x 10² m