Among all nuclear ground-state properties, atomic masses are highly specific
for each particular combination of N and Z and the data obtained apply to a
variety of physics topics. One of the most crucial questions to be addressed in
mass spectrometry of unstable radionuclides is the one of understanding the
processes of element formation in the Universe. To this end, accurate atomic
mass values of a large number of exotic nuclei participating in nucleosynthesis
are among the key input data in large-scale reaction network calculations. In
this paper, a review on the latest achievements in mass spectrometry for
nuclear astrophysics is given.Comment: Proceedings of the 10th Symposium on Nuclei in the Cosmos, NIC X -
Mackinac Island, Michigan, USA (10 pages, 4 figures
