this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2025
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The one that annoys me is in astronomy when someone describes a star as being X times the size of the Sun. Diameter? Volume? Mass? What's being compared here?
In physics, it's usually the mass.
I always assumed volume, def not mass, but what is it actually?
we don't know becuase they never say! It's usually words from a scientist, then someone writes a press release, then someone writes a pop-sci article on the topic.
knowing what I do about astronomy I'd guess it's usually mass since that's a fundamental descriptive quality of stars which determines the rest of their qualities. but we can't directly measure mass we measure brightness, the spectra, and estimate the distance. these are used together to estimate the mass.
Length and only length