Answer: 500000 samples
zero padding is necessary.
Explanation: To determine the number of signal samples
Time = 10ms with bandwidth of 10kHz
Number of sample = 10×10^3×50
Number of sample = 5000000
The two reasons to zero pad are:
1). We must consider speed. A sample size that is a power of two is going to be the fastest possible. A sample size that is factorizable into small primes is a little slower. A prime number is slowest. However, for modern computers and a sample size on the order of 10,000
Now, if you want to do 100,000,000 sample sizes, then maybe it makes a difference.
2).The second reason to zero pad an FFT is to a little better frequency resolution.