Help with question, please

Question

My friend and I were having an argument about planetary distances. I said the distance between the Earth and the Moon is 100,000 miles. My friend said the distance between Saturn and the Sun was 1 billion miles.
Turns out we were both wrong. The distance between the Earth and the Moon is actually 238,900 miles and the distance between Saturn and the Sun is 890,700,000 miles.

a. Who had the smaller absolute error?

b. Who had the smaller relative error?

Answer 1

100,000 miles

238,900 miles

Absolute error is 138,000  (smaller)

 

1 billion miles

890,700,000

Absolute error is 109,300,000 (larger)

 

%error = (100,000 miles - 238,900 miles)/238,900 miles   x 100 = -57.8 % error (larger)

 

(1 billion miles - 890,700,000)/890,700,000  x 100 = 12.3% error (smaller)