Calculating Redshift Scientific Notation, Part 1

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Another thing you will need to know to calculate redshift is scientific notation. In Astronomy (and other sciences), scientists often deal with huge numbers. For example, the nearest distance from Earth to the star Vega is 158,700,000,000,000 miles, and that number is the one of the smaller that astronomers use. After a while it can become difficult to read these distances and do calculations. This problem even applies to chemists and physicists who have to use really small numbers (think .0000000000000085). One way to help with that problem is using scientific notation.

You may have seen scientific notation before. It looks like this: 4.85 x 10⁹ or 3.37 x 10⁴

If you were to write out that number it would be 4,850,000,000 and 33,700

Remember, when switching between the two you are not creating a new number, only formatting the same number two different ways.