Server Administration :: Oracle Range Partitioning

Environment
I have a database 10.2.0.4 running on 64bit Solaris 5.10 SPARC.

Question:

CREATE TABLE SYSTEM.BIG_TABLE1
(
ID NUMBER(10),
LOOKUP_ID NUMBER(10),
DATA VARCHAR2(50 BYTE)
)
[code].......

When I query dba_tab_partitions. I get this result

select table_name, partition_name, high_value, high_value_length from dba_tab_partitions where table_name = 'BIG_TABLE1' ;

table_name partition_name high_value HIGH_VALUE_LENGTH
------------- -------------- ---------- -----------------
BIG_TABLE1 BIG_TABLE_2003 1000000000 10
BIG_TABLE1 BIG_TABLE_2004 5000000000 10
BIG_TABLE1 BIG_TABLE_2005 MAXVALUE 8

3 rows selected.

Now my question is why do I see max_value_lengh=8 when my column value is 10. I don't get any error. But I do like to understand it.