The distance in scientific notation is 5.6x10^5 miles. ^ is to the power of. Start from the right of a number and count the number of spaces till you get between the first two numbers, and that is how you get your exponent. It would be a different case if you had a decimal number though. For example the scientific notation of 0.00000256 would be 2.5x10^-6. You would count the number of spaces from the left to right and the exponent would be a negative.
