Mercury's distance = 5.8 x 10¹⁰
Venus' distance = 1.86 farther or more than Mercury's, namely 1.86(5.8 x 10¹⁰)
Earth's distance = 2.58 farther or more than Mercury's, namely 2.58(5.8 x 10¹⁰)
[tex]\bf \stackrel{\textit{venus' distance}}{1.86(5.8\times 10^{10})}\implies \begin{cases} 1.86(58000000000)\\ 107880000000\\ 1.0788\times 10^{11} \end{cases} \\\\\\ \stackrel{\textit{earth's distance}}{2.58(5.8\times 10^{10})}\implies \begin{cases} 2.58(58000000000)\\ 149640000000\\ 1.4964\times 10^{11} \end{cases}[/tex]
about how many meters farther is Earth's than Venus? well, we can simply get their difference, we know the Earth is farther than Venus, so we can just subtract Venus' distance from Earth's to get the difference, namely 149640000000 - 107880000000.
[tex]\bf \stackrel{earth}{149640000000} - \stackrel{venus}{107880000000}~~ = ~~41760000000\implies \stackrel{\textit{rounded up}}{4.2\times 10^{10}}[/tex]
