Survey says...

[asterroc]

A few questions about terminology in astronomy... For any of the "Something else"s, I encourage you to comment. Or just in general, feel free to comment, though I'd appreciate it if you filled out the survey before you read the comments.

NOTE: third question didn't come out right, it's supposed to read "Are either the words 'size' or 'bigger' ambiguous to you?" If you care to add this in the comments, I'd love to know. :)

[Poll #1929305]

Comments

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

"Physical size" is a vague term that encompasses radius/diameter/volume (and therefore also surface area/cross-sectional area, though we don't particularly think about that when we use the term).

In most of astronomy physical size scales with mass - you don't often get two objects of the same type where one is bigger but the other is more massive. Astronomers don't use "weight" to describe things since "weight" means "force of gravity while on the surface of the Earth", which just isn't relevant.