How many bytes are there in a megabyte?

A megabyte is a unit of digital information storage commonly understood to equal 1,048,576 bytes. This comes from the binary system used in computing, where digital information is based on powers of 2. Specifically, since a megabyte is defined as (2^{20}) bytes, calculating this gives you:

[

2^{20} = 1,048,576 \text{ bytes}

]

This definition aligns with the traditional binary interpretation of data sizes, where each successive unit of measurement is power of 2. Therefore, in a context where binary prefixes are used, one megabyte equals 1,048,576 bytes, confirming that the chosen answer is indeed the correct understanding of a megabyte in computing terminology.