Spitzer + Hubble Space Telescope Parallaxes of 13 Late T and Y Dwarfs
Abstract We present astrometric measurements for 13 cold brown dwarfs in the solar neighborhood ( d < 20 pc). By combining archival Spitzer data with our own Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations, we achieve parallax uncertainties typically around 10%. Using Spitzer and HST photometry we compare our targets with other known late T and Y dwarfs in the Solar neighborhood, confirming that there is large intrinsic scatter in the near- and mid-infrared absolute magnitudes and colors of this population, further highlighting the diversity observed spectroscopically by several James Webb Space Telescope programs. This scatter makes photometric distance estimates highly unreliable and, therefore, makes astrometric parallax measurements fundamental for a meaningful characterization of even the nearest cold brown dwarfs.
Authors
- Adam C. Schneider (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6294-5937)
- Jacqueline K. Faherty (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6251-0573)
- Christopher R. Gelino (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5072-4574)
- Dan Caselden (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7896-5791)
- E. Costa (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4142-1082)
- J. Davy Kirkpatrick (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4269-260X)
- Federico Marocco (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7519-1700)
- Robert A. Stiller (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7181-2554)
- Michael C. Cushing (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7780-3352)
- E. L. Wright (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5058-1593)
- Aaron Meisner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1125-7384)
- Marc J. Kuchner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2387-5489)
- Maximiliano Dirk
- Richard L. Smart
- Rene A. Mendez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1454-0596)
- Peter R. M. Eisenhardt
Institutions
- Goddard Space Flight Center (US)
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory (US)
- American Museum of Natural History (US)
- University of Hertfordshire (GB)
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino (IT)
- NSF NOIRLab (US)
- United States Naval Observatory (US)
- Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (US)
- University of Chile (CL)
- National Institute for Astrophysics (IT)
- University of Toledo (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- The Astronomical Journal
- Published
- 2026-04-13
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ae5061
- Primary Topic
- Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00