what is 10 to the power of nine?

When they say the "ninth power" or "power of nine" that means multiply the number by itself nine times.

10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 = 1,000,000,000

A shortcut is that when the base is 10, you can just add that number of zeros after the figure 1. So 1 followed by 9 0's.

A lot

10^9

10^9 = 10⁹

= 10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10

= 1,000,000,000

It means one with nine zeros

It is 42

1,000,000,000

A U.S. billion. 1,000,000,000

It’s 15

1000000000