SMDET-1: A Nearby Y-dwarf Candidate
Open accessAbstract
We present the discovery of SMDET-1, a red, fast-moving object ( μ ≈ 1 . ″ 3 yr −1 ) identified in time-resolved unblurred Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer coadds using a pixel-level deep learning methodology called SMDET. Despite being relatively bright at 4.5 μ m compared to many other recent WISE-based brown dwarf discoveries ( m [4.5] ≈ 14.6 mag Vega), SMDET-1 had remained overlooked due to its location in a very crowded Galactic plane field ( b ≈ 2 . ° 25) and contamination from brighter background objects. SMDET-1 is also serendipitously detected at 4.5 μ m in late-2012 Spitzer Deep GLIMPSE survey imaging. SMDET-1 is undetected in UKIDSS and Palomar/Wide Field Infrared Camera near-infrared imaging, with the strongest constraint on its temperature ( T eff < 391 K) arising from its Deep GLIMPSE color limit of m [3.6] − m [4.5] > 2.81 mag, which also implies a very nearby photometric distance <7.4 pc. The Spitzer color bound corresponds to a Y-dwarf phototype. SMDET-1 illustrates the importance of continued searches for nearby brown dwarfs within archival datasets like WISE and Spitzer, as well as the potential of pixel-level deep learning to discover astronomical moving objects that challenge traditional data analysis approaches.
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- Authors
- Meisner, A. M., Caselden, D., Marocco, F., Kirkpatrick, J. D., Gagné, J., Schneider, A. C., Beiler, S. A., Fajardo-Acosta, S. B., Faherty, J. K., Metchev, S. A., Barber, S., Kuchner, M. J., Bickle, T. P., Rustamkulov, Z., & The Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 Collaboration
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- Department of Astrophysics
- Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (US)
- IPAC
- Université de Montréal (CA)
- United States Naval Observatory (US)
- Trinity College Dublin (IE)
- Western University (CA)
- Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory
- The Open University (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Meisner, Aaron M.
- ORCID
- Venue
- The Astronomical Journal
- Publisher
- American Astronomical Society
- Published
- 2026-08-14
- Volume
- 172
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 154
- ISSN
- 0004-6256 (ISSN-L)
- 1538-3881
- OpenAlex
- W7172557229
- Cited by
- 0
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 0.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- The Astronomical Journal (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (cc-by)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (5-03127, NAS5-03127)
- California Institute of Technology
- Space Telescope Science Institute (NAS5-03127, 5-03127)
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- University of California, Los Angeles
- Planetary Science Division
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Instrumentation › Astronomy and Astrophysical Research
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies
- Keywords
- brown dwarf discovery, nearby brown dwarfs, WISE, moving objects, effective temperature, photometric distances, Galactic plane
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