A MASSIF Effort

The Masses and Stellar Systems with Interferometry (MASSIF) project seeks to explore the mass content of our Galaxy through the determination of the fundamental characteristics, such as multiplicity, mass, distance, and luminosity, for a wide range of stellar types of differing ages and composition.

This is a Key Project of the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) funded by NASA through the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. The project contact was awarded to the Georgia State University with Dr. Todd J. Henry as Principal Investigator.

The proposed SIM observations will target 100 or more relatively nearby binary systems of small separation and short period. There is a subcontract with Thie University of Virgina, having Dr. Philip A. Ianna as PI, to assist with the identification of the best set of targets for study by the SIM spacecraft.

In particular, Ianna is working on the discovery of nearby stars and the determination of multiplicity and distances to candidates in the southern hemisphere. He also advises on issues such as reduction techniques and the modeling of the observations toward reaching the final astrometric precision goals. A graduate student under Ianna's superivsions, Ms. Jennifer Bartlett, carries out some of the observations in Chile, and she assists with the choice of stellar candidates from the literature and the processing of the accumulated observational data.