Dynamical Young Star Masses

Mass is a star's most important property, once composition has been established, and determines the entire life trajectory of an object. Only a couple dozen young stars have absolute dynamical mass measurements, and many of those are imprecise. We propose to observe ~17 young close visual binaries in the Taurus star forming region to advance our knowledge of young star masses. We will use NIRSPEC in high-resolution mode behind the adaptive optics system on the Keck II telescope.