# The mass of Venus is about 4.871times10^21 metric tons. The mass of the sun is about 1.998times20^27 metric tons. About how many times the mass of Venus is the mass of the sun and give your answer in scientific notation?

Sep 3, 2017

The mass of the Sun is approximately $4.102 \times {10}^{5}$ times that of Venus

#### Explanation:

Let the mas of Venus be $v$
Let the mass of the Sun be $s$

Let the constant of comparison be $k$

The question states:

How many times the mass of Venus $\to v \times k =$
is the mass of the Sun$\textcolor{w h i t e}{\text{ddddddddd.d}} \to v \times k = s$

$\implies 4.871 \times {10}^{21} \times k = 1.998 \times {20}^{27}$

$k = \frac{1.998 \times {20}^{27}}{4.871 \times {10}^{21}}$

Important point: The question uses the word 'about' so they are looking for solution that is not precise. Also they do not state the degree of precision to be applied.

$k = 0.4101827 \ldots . \times {10}^{6}$

Write as:

$k = 4.101827 \ldots \times {10}^{5}$

The question presents values to 3 decimal places so we should be quite safe to use the same degree of precision.

State k as $k = 4.102 \times {10}^{5}$ Approximately