@article{4e73b298e2c5434fb0eba9b646cc5139,
title = "The discovery of a field methane dwarf from sloan digital sky survey commissioning data",
abstract = "We report the discovery of the coolest field dwarf yet known, selected as an unresolved object with extremely red colors from commissioning imaging data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Its spectrum from 0.8 to 2.5 μm is dominated by strong bands of H2O and CH4. Its spectrum and colors over this range are very similar to those of Gl 229B. the only other known example of a methane dwarf. It is roughly 1.2 mag fainter than Gl 229B, suggesting that it lies at a distance of ∼10 pc. Such a cool object must have a mass well below the hydrogenburning limit of 0.08 M⊙ and therefore is a genuine brown dwarf, with a probable mass in the range 0.015-0.06 M⊙ for an age range of 0.3-5 Gyr. Subject headings: stars: low-mass, brown dwarfs - surveys.",
author = "Strauss, {Michael A.} and Xiaohui Fan and Gunn, {James E.} and Leggett, {S. K.} and Geballe, {T. R.} and Pier, {Jeffrey R.} and Lupton, {Robert H.} and Knapp, {G. R.} and James Annis and J. Brinkmann and Crocker, {J. H.} and Ist{\'v}n Csabai and Masataka Fukugita and Golimowski, {David A.} and Harris, {Frederick H.} and Hennessy, {G. S.} and Hindsley, {Robert B.} and {\v Z}eljko Ivezi{\'c} and Stephen Kent and Lamb, {D. Q.} and Munn, {Jeffrey A.} and Newberg, {Heidi Jo} and Ron Rechenmacher and Schneider, {Donald P.} and Smith, {J. Allyn} and Chris Stoughton and Tucker, {Douglas L.} and Patrick Waddell and York, {Donald G.}",
note = "Funding Information: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is a joint project of the University of Chicago, Fermilab, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Japan Participation Group, the Johns Hopkins University, the Max-Planck-Institute f{\"u}r Astronomy, Princeton University, the US Naval Observatory, and the University of Washington. Apache Point Observatory, site of the SDSS, is operated by the Astrophysical Research Consortium. Funding for the project has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the SDSS member institutions, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Energy, and the Ministry of Education of Japan. M. A. S. and X. F. acknowledge additional support from Research Corporation, NSF grant AST 96-16901, the Princeton University Research Board, and an Advisory Council Scholarship, and G. K. is grateful for support from Princeton University and NSF grant AST 96-18503. We also thank Russet McMillan for her usual expert assistance at Apache Point Observatory, Jen Adelman for helping on the data reduction, and Davy Kirkpatrick, Herbert Strauss, and Scott Tremaine for some very enlightening discussions. UKIRT is operated by the Joint Astronomy Centre on behalf of the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council. We are grateful to the staff of UKIRT for its support, to A. J. Adamson for use of UKIRT Director{\textquoteright}s time, and to him and Tom Kerr for obtaining some of the CGS4 data.",
year = "1999",
month = sep,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1086/312218",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "522",
pages = "L61--L64",
journal = "Astrophysical Journal",
issn = "0004-637X",
publisher = "American Astronomical Society",
number = "1 PART 2",
}