can you help me with math I don't understand that.

Question

Proxima Centauri, the star nearest to our solar system, is 4.3 light-years away. A light-year, the distance that light travels in one year, is about 5,900,000,000,000 mi. Use this information to express the distance in miles. (Round your answer to one decimal place.)

-------× 10     -------mi

Answer 1

5,900,000,000,000 = 5.9 x 10¹²

 

5.9 x 10¹² means that you move the decimal point 12 places to the right to get 5,900,000,000,000.  It is just "shorthand" for writing very large (or very small) numbers.