Ronna, quetta, ronto and quecto….are the new prefixes as established the last november 2022 by the International System of Units, were approved by a unanimous vote at the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM).
This is the first time that new prefixes have been added to the metric system since 1991, when zetta (10˄21), zepto (10˄minus21), yotta (10˄24) and yocto (10˄minus24), were added.
The main reason for the new prefixes is that data science has advanced so much and there is now much greater need for greater digital storage in computing, but they could be helpful also for other sciences.
The new prefixes for large things, ronna and quetta, are also the perfect scale to help astronomers to neatly weigh planets. Now we can say that Earth weighs approximately 6 ronnagrams!
The inclusion of the prefixes ronto and quecto is required to provide balance to the scales and they could also be helpful for researchers in fields like quantum and particle physics, where scientists measure really small things, he added.
