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Register a new userDENIS J081730.0-615520: An overlooked mid-T dwarf in the solar neighborhood
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Recent wide-field near-infrared surveys have uncovered a large number of cool brown dwarfs, extending the temperature sequence down to less than 500 K and constraining the faint end of the luminosity function. One interesting implication of the derived luminosity function is that the brown dwarf census in the immediate (<10 pc) solar neighborhood is still largely incomplete, and some bright (J<16) brown dwarfs remain to be identified in existing surveys. These objects are especially interesting as they are the ones that can be studied in most detail, especially with techniques that require large fluxes (e.g. time-variability, polarimetry, high-resolution spectroscopy) that cannot realistically be applied to objects uncovered by deep surveys. By cross-matching the DENIS and the 2MASS point-source catalogs, we have identified an overlooked brown dwarf -DENIS J081730.0-615520- that is the brightest field mid-T dwarf in the sky (J = 13.6). We present astrometry and spectroscopy follow-up observations of this brown dwarf. Our data indicate a spectral type T6 and a distance -from parallax measurement- of 4.9pm0.3 pc, placing this mid-T dwarf among the 3 closest isolated brown dwarfs to the Sun.
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The study of the stellar formation history in the solar neighborhood is a powerful technique to recover information about the early stages and evolution of the Milky Way. We present a new method which consists of directly probing the formation history from the nearby stellar remnants. We rely on the volume complete sample of white dwarfs within 20 pc, where accurate cooling ages and masses have been determined. The well characterized initial-final mass relation is employed in order to recover the initial masses (1 < M/Msun < 8) and total ages for the local degenerate sample. We correct for moderate biases that are necessary to transform our results to a global stellar formation rate, which can be compared to similar studies based on the properties of main-sequence stars in the solar neighborhood. Our method provides precise formation rates for all ages except in very recent times, and the results suggest an enhanced formation rate for the solar neighborhood in the last 5 Gyr compared to the range 5 < Age (Gyr) < 10. Furthermore, the observed total age of ~10 Gyr for the oldest white dwarfs in the local sample is consistent with the early seminal studies that have determined the age of the Galactic disk from stellar remnants. The main shortcoming of our study is the small size of the local white dwarf sample. However, the presented technique can be applied to larger samples in the future.
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The Kepler mission has revealed that Earth-sized planets are common, and dozens have been discovered to orbit in or near their host stars habitable zone. A major focus in astronomy is to determine which of these exoplanets are likely to have Earth-like properties that are amenable to follow-up with both ground- and future space-based surveys, with an ultimate goal of probing their atmospheres to look for signs of life. Venus-like atmospheres will be of particular interest in these surveys. While Earth and Venus evolved to have similar sizes and densities, it remains unclear what factors led to the dramatic divergence of their atmospheres. Studying analogs to both Earth and Venus can thus shed light on the limits of habitability and the potential for life on known exoplanets. Here we present the discovery and confirmation of Kepler-1649b, an Earth-sized planet orbiting a nearby M5V star that receives incident flux at a level similar to that of Venus. We present our methods for characterizing the star, using a combination of PSF photometry, ground-based spectroscopy and imaging, to confirm the planetary nature of Kepler-1649b. Planets like Kepler-1649b will be prime candidates for atmospheric and habitability studies in the next generation of space missions.
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