Flux and Color of WISE 0855-0714

TL;DR

This paper presents a detailed analysis of the flux and color of WISE 0855-0714, the coldest known brown dwarf, using 10.5 years of NEOWISE data to overcome background contamination.

Contribution

It provides the first uncontaminated measurements of WISE 0855-0714's flux and color, refining its photometric properties.

Findings

W1 magnitude = 19.3 ± 0.37

W1-W2 color = 5.4 ± 0.37

Analysis confirms low temperature and proximity

Abstract

WISE 0855-0714 is the coldest known brown dwarf, located 2.28 pc from the solar system. Discovered by the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) in 2014 (Luhman 2014), the object is of interest to scientists because of its low temperature ($\approx270$ K), proximity to the solar system, small mass ($\sim3-10\: M_{J}$), and high proper motion. The first observations of W0855 by WISE in 2010 are heavily contaminated by a background source. With 10.5 years of observations following the NEOWISE reactivation in 2013 (Mainzer et al., 2014), we present a robust analysis of W0855's flux and color unobstructed by this background source. We obtain W1 = 19.3 and W1-W2 = 5.4 magnitudes with an error of 0.37 magnitudes.