The near-Earth asteroid (NEA) 2015 TB145 had a very close encounter with Earth at 1.3 lunar distances on October 31, 2015. We obtained 3-band mid-infrared observations of this asteroid with the ESO VLT-VISIR instrument covering about 4 hours in total. We also monitored the visual lightcurve during the close-encounter phase. The NEA has a (most likely) rotation period of 2.939+/-0.005-hours and the visual lightcurve shows a peak-to-peak amplitude of about 0.12+/-0.02mag. A second rotation period of 4.779+/-0.012h, with an amplitude of the Fourier fit of 0.10+/-0.02mag, also seems compatible with the available lightcurve measurements. We estimate a V-R colour of 0.56+/-0.05mag from different entries in the MPC database. A reliable determination of the object's absolute magnitude was not possible. Applying different phase relations to the available R-/V-band observations produced H_R_=18.6mag (standard H-G calculations) or H_R_=19.2mag and H_V_=19.8mag (via the H-G_12_ procedure for sparse and low-quality data), with large uncertainties of about 1mag. We performed a detailed thermophysical model analysis by using spherical and partially also ellipsoidal shape models. The thermal properties are best explained by an equator-on (+/-~30{deg}) viewing geometry during our measurements with a thermal inertia in the range 250-700J/m^2^/s^0.5^/K (retrograde rotation) or above 500J/m^2^/s^0.5^/K (prograde rotation). We find that the NEA has a minimum size of about 625m, a maximum size of just below 700m, and a slightly elongated shape with a/b~1.1.
With Herschel PACS 134 low mass members of the Taurus star-forming region spanning the M4-L0 spectral type range and covering the transition from low mass stars to brown dwarfs were observed. Combining the new Herschel results with other programs, a total of 150 of the 154 M4-L0 Taurus members members have observations with Herschel. Among the 150 targets, 70um flux densities were measured for 7 of the 7 Class I objects, 48 of the 67 Class II members, and 3 of the 76 Class III targets. For the detected Class II objects, the median 70um flux density level declines with spectral type, however, the distribution of excess relative to central object flux density does not change across the stellar/substellar boundary in the M4-L0 range. Connecting the 70um TBOSS values with the results from K0-M3 Class II members results in the first comprehensive census of far-IR emission across the full mass spectrum of the stellar and substellar population of a star-forming region, and the median flux density declines with spectral type in a trend analogous to the flux density decline expected for the central objects. Based on an initial exploration of the impact of different physical parameters; inclination, scale height and flaring have the largest influence on the PACS flux densities. From the 24um to 70um spectral index of the SEDs, 5 new candidate transition disks were identified. The steep 24um to 70um slope for a subset of 8 TBOSS targets may be an indication of truncated disks in these systems. Two examples of mixed pair systems that include secondaries with disks were measured. Finally, comparing the TBOSS results with a Herschel study of Ophiuchus brown dwarfs reveals a lower fraction of disks around the Taurus substellar population.
We report 885 {mu}m ALMA continuum flux densities for 24 Taurus members spanning the stellar/substellar boundary with spectral types from M4 to M7.75. Of the 24 systems, 22 are detected at levels ranging from 1.0 to 55.7 mJy. The two nondetections are transition disks, though other transition disks in the sample are detected. Converting ALMA continuum measurements to masses using standard scaling laws and radiative transfer modeling yields dust mass estimates ranging from ~0.3 to 20 M_{Earth}_. The dust mass shows a declining trend with central object mass when combined with results from submillimeter surveys of more massive Taurus members. The substellar disks appear as part of a continuous sequence and not a distinct population. Compared to older Upper Sco members with similar masses across the substellar limit, the Taurus disks are brighter and more massive. Both Taurus and Upper Sco populations are consistent with an approximately linear relationship in M_dust_ to M_star_, although derived power-law slopes depend strongly upon choices of stellar evolutionary model and dust temperature relation. The median disk around early-M stars in Taurus contains a comparable amount of mass in small solids as the average amount of heavy elements in Kepler planetary systems on short-period orbits around M-dwarf stars, with an order of magnitude spread in disk dust mass about the median value. Assuming a gas-to-dust ratio of 100:1, only a small number of low-mass stars and brown dwarfs have a total disk mass amenable to giant planet formation, consistent with the low frequency of giant planets orbiting M dwarfs.
The discovery of technetium (Tc) in the atmospheres of red giants by Merrill (1952ApJ...116...21M) constituted convincing proof that s-process nucleosynthesis is indeed occurring in evolved stars. In principle, Tc should still be present in the atmospheres of hot post-AGB stars and (pre-) white dwarfs although, due to radioactive decay, it should be present in decreasing quantities along post-AGB evolution. The recent discovery of a large number of trans-iron group elements in hot white dwarfs with atomic numbers in the range A=30-56 (Zn to Ba) raises the prospect that Tc (A=43) may also be detected. However, this is currently not feasible because no atomic data exist for ionization stages beyond TcII. As an initial step, we calculated atomic energy levels and oscillator strengths of Tc IV-VI and used these data to compute non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE) model atmospheres to estimate at which minimum abundance level Tc could be detected. We show that Tc lines can be found in ultraviolet spectra of hot white dwarfs provided Tc is as abundant as other detected trans-Fe elements. We find that radiative levitation can keep Tc in large, easily detectable quantities in the atmosphere. A direct identification of Tc lines is still not feasible because wavelength positions cannot be computed with necessary precision. Laboratory measurements are necessary to overcome this problem. Our results suggest that such efforts are beneficial to the astrophysical community.
There is strong evidence that globular cluster systems (GCSs) of massive galaxies are largely assembled by infall/accretion processes. Therefore, we expect the GCSs of isolated elliptical galaxies to be poor. Although not completely isolated, NGC 7507 is a massive field elliptical galaxy with an apparently very low dark matter content. We determine the richness, the colour distribution, and the structural properties of the GCS of NGC 7507. We performed wide-field Washington photometry with data obtained with the MOSAIC II camera at the 4m-Blanco telescope (CTIO, Chile).
We describe a deep multi-colour NIR survey (TCS-CAIN) that has been recently completed at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (Spain). The survey is of selected areas distributed along the Galactic plane and it goes deeper than 2MASS or DENIS. Its aim was to explore the large-scale structure of the Milky Way and the Galactic components, in particular the Galactic bar. This survey has about 10 million point-source detections in J, H, and Ks filters with a photometric accuracy of about 0.1mag in the three bands and a positional accuracy of about 0.2" (based on the 2MASS catalogue as the astrometric reference).
The Belgian/UK Ultraviolet Sky Survey Telescope (S2/68) in the ESRO TD1 satellite carried out a controlled scan of the entire sky. It measured the absolute ultraviolet flux distribution between 2740A and 1350A of point sources down to 10th visual magnitude for unreddened early B stars. The S2/68 experiment has been described by Boksenberg et al. (1973MNRAS.163..291B), and the absolute calibration by Humphries et al. (1976A&A....49..389H). The TD1 Catalog of Stellar Ultraviolet Fluxes represents results from the sky-scan experiment on the TD1 satellite of the European Space Research Organization (ESRO), now part of ESA. It lists the absolute fluxes, in four passbands, for 31,215 stars: <pre> Passband Center: 274.0nm 236.5nm 196.5nm 156.5nm Effective Width: 31.0nm 33.0nm 33.0nm 33.0nm </pre> The stars have been selected subject to the constraint that the signal-to-noise ratio should be at least 10.0 in any one of the four passbands. Null values of a flux field and an error field indicate there are no valid data for the star. This usually arises with close pairs of stars whose spectra overlap. Five standard flux error values are greater than 99.99, and were too large for the format of the flux field in the original table. Thus, the flux error values which were greater than 99.99 are given as 99.99. Many of the fainter stars of spectral type later than A5 do not have significant signals in all of the spectrophotometric channels (particularly the 1565A channel). Consequently, after the removal of the background, they can randomly give rise to small negative values of flux. Those negative values were not suppressed, but are given together with their error, as they can be significant when considered as part of a statistical sample. Although the sky coverage is essentially complete, the catalog does not contain the fluxes for all stars that fall within the limit of the sensitivity of the instrument. If any star expected to be present is missing, then its signal is probably blended with that of a nearby star, in which case the data have been discarded. The original contents of the HEASARC's TD1 database table came from a magnetic tape sent to NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center by Dr. G.I. Thompson of the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, Scotland. The HEASARC recreated this database table in August 2005, based on the <a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/II/59B">CDS Catalog II/59B</a> file catalog.dat.gz, in an effort to modernize its parameter names and documentation, as well as to add Galactic coordinates. The data in the CDS version originally came from "Selected Astronomical Catalogs" Vol. 1 CD-ROM released by the NASA Astronomical Data Center (ADC) in 1991. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
We report observational techniques, results, and Monte Carlo population analyses from a Spitzer Infrared Array Camera imaging survey for substellar companions to 117 nearby M, L, and T dwarf systems (median distance of 10pc, mass range of 0.6 to ~0.05M_{sun}_). The two-epoch survey achieves typical detection sensitivities to substellar companions of [4.5um]<=17.2mag for angular separations between about 7" and 165". Based on common proper motion analysis, we find no evidence for new substellar companions. Using Monte Carlo orbital simulations (assuming random inclination, random eccentricity, and random longitude of pericenter), we conclude that the observational sensitivities translate to an ability to detect 600-1100K brown dwarf companions at semimajor axes >~35AU and to detect 500-600 K companions at semimajor axes >~60AU. The simulations also estimate a 600-1100K T dwarf companion fraction of <3.4% for 35-1200AU separations and <12.4% for the 500-600K companions for 60-1000AU separations.
We report the discovery of 87 new T dwarfs uncovered with the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and 3 brown dwarfs with extremely red near-infrared colors that exhibit characteristics of both L and T dwarfs. Two of the new T dwarfs are likely binaries with L7+/-1 primaries and mid-type T secondaries. In addition, our follow-up program has confirmed 10 previously identified T dwarfs and 4 photometrically selected L and T dwarf candidates in the literature. This sample, along with the previous WISE discoveries, triples the number of known brown dwarfs with spectral types later than T5. Using the WISE All-Sky Source Catalog we present updated color-color and color-type diagrams for all the WISE-discovered T and Y dwarfs. Near-infrared spectra of the new discoveries are presented along with spectral classifications.
We report the discovery of 76 new T dwarfs from the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) Large Area Survey (LAS). Near-infrared broad- and narrow-band photometry and spectroscopy are presented for the new objects, along with Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and warm-Spitzer photometry. Proper motions for 128 UKIDSS T dwarfs are presented from a new two epoch LAS proper motion catalogue. We use these motions to identify two new benchmark systems: LHS 6176AB, a T8p+M4 pair and HD 118865AB, a T5.5+F8 pair. Using age constraints from the primaries and evolutionary models to constrain the radii, we have estimated their physical properties from their bolometric luminosity. We compare the colours and properties of known benchmark T dwarfs to the latest model atmospheres and draw two principal conclusions. First, it appears that the H-[4.5] and J-W2 colours are more sensitive to metallicity than has previously been recognized, such that differences in metallicity may dominate over differences in Teff when considering relative properties of cool objects using these colours. Secondly, the previously noted apparent dominance of young objects in the late-T dwarf sample is no longer apparent when using the new model grids and the expanded sample of late-T dwarfs and benchmarks. This is supported by the apparently similar distribution of late-T dwarfs and earlier type T dwarfs on reduced proper motion diagrams that we present. Finally, we present updated space densities for the late-T dwarfs, and compare our values to simulation predictions and those from WISE.
