On this page of our course on the sun ..
http://www.opencourse.info/astronomy/introduction/12.sun_interior/
it has this sun fact ..
Age: 5 Gy
I know y is year ..what does the G stand for ?
2007-03-10 08:32:07 · 6 answers · asked by Planet22 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
It stands for Giga. Meaning Giga-years in this case. Whenever you see Giga (G) read it as billion.
So, it would be Age: 5 billion years.
You will most likely see it as Age: 5 Ga, which means Giga-ano, also meaning billion years. "Ga" is the scientific way of writing it and you will see it most often if you continue with science in any way.
example: 7.8 million years would be written as 7.8 Ma, or mega-ano.
2007-03-10 08:44:37 · answer #1 · answered by sprocket9727 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The sun is about 5 billion years old. G would stand for billion or Giga which is either used to express a number of 2^30 or 1,000,000,000 depending on what type of unit you are refering to. Examples would be GB (Gigabyte @ 2^30 bytes) and KM (Kilometer or 1000 meters) and KB (kilobyte @ 2^10 or 1024 bytes).
2007-03-10 08:41:28 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
1 Gigayear = 1 Billion years (10 raised to the power of 9)
2007-03-10 08:59:07 · answer #3 · answered by eloma 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
5 billion years. G as in giga, like gigabyte=1 billion bytes. Unusual to see it being used in this context, it goes against convention. Should be just 5 billion years.
2007-03-10 08:42:40 · answer #4 · answered by Labsci 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Giga. Pronounced 'jig-ah'. The metric prefix for 10^9.
HTH âº
Doug
2007-03-10 08:35:28 · answer #5 · answered by doug_donaghue 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Gillion.
2007-03-10 08:34:54 · answer #6 · answered by kute_regina_gal 4 · 0⤊ 3⤋