Mary Barsony
- Adjoint Professor of Physics & Astronomy
- Office: Thornton Hall, Room 417
- Office Hours: By appointment
- Phone/FAX: (707)874-9055
- e-mail: mbarsony@stars.sfsu.edu
- URL: physics.sfsu.edu/~mbarsony
Current Research Projects
-
Spitzer IRS (InfraRed Spectrometer) imaging of the outflow
driven
by the nearest, well-isolated protostar,
IRAS 16253-2429. We have
named this the Wasp-Waist Nebula,
based on its IRAC appearance (the image to the right). The
Wasp-Waist Nebula is unique
in that the protostar's infall envelope is seen in
absorption (the black areas surrounding the blue nebulosities)
at mid-infrared wavelengths against the solid-state PAH
(polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon) emission from the surrounding
molecular cloud.
The properties of this protostar's infall envelope are also being studied.
-
-
-
An investigation of the stellar and disk properties
of a sample of close (a few hundred AU separation)
pre-main-sequence binary/multiple systems via near-infrared spectroscopy
and spatially resolved, ground-based, near-IR and mid-IR imaging photometry.
This work will comprise the basis for SFSU graduate student,
Rajasi Joshi's, M.Sc. thesis.
-
-
-
-
-
-
Search for free-floating, planetary-sized bodies in the
ρ Ophiuchi clouds (shown to the right in near-infrared
light), via narrowband methane filter imaging. These are the
closest star-forming clouds to Earth, with the youngest embedded
sources, when proto-planets are expected to be at their brightest.
-
Prof. Barsony in front of her poster at the
January 2009 meeting of the AAS in Long Beach,
presenting results on the Wasp-Waist Nebula, shown below.