WISEP J180026.60+013453.1: A Nearby Late L Dwarf Near the Galactic Plane

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of a nearby late L dwarf using infrared survey data, highlighting its significance as a benchmark object for studying cool substellar atmospheres.

Contribution

The discovery of WISEP J180026.60+013453.1 as a nearby late L dwarf near the Galactic Plane using WISE and 2MASS data, providing a valuable benchmark for atmospheric studies.

Findings

Located at approximately 8.8 parsecs from Earth

Sixth closest known L dwarf

Serves as a benchmark for atmospheric cloud studies

Abstract

We report a nearby L7.5 dwarf discovered using the Preliminary Data Release of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS). WISEP J180026.60+013453.1 has a motion of 0.42 arcsec/yr and an estimated distance of 8.8 \pm 1.0 pc. With this distance, it currently ranks as the sixth closest known L dwarf, although a trigonometric parallax is needed to confirm this distance. It was previously overlooked because it lies near the Galactic Plane (b=12). As a relatively bright and nearby late L dwarf with normal near-infrared colors, W1800+0134 will serve as a benchmark for studies of cloud-related phenomena in cool substellar atmospheres.