This work is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA/CSA JWST and obtained from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes at the Space Telescope Science Institute. The specific observations analyzed can be accessed via 10.17909/8by2-x206. We are truly grateful for the countless hours that thousands of people have devoted to the design, construction, and commissioning of JWST. We thank the anonymous referee for comments that have been crucial toward the improvement of this Letter. This project was supported by a grant from STScI (JWST-ERS-01386) under NASA contract NAS5-03127. S.R. was supported by the Global Excellence Award at the University of Exeter. This work is based in part on observations obtained at the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) telescope, which is a joint project of the Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovações (MCTI/LNA) of Brasil, the US National Science Foundation's NOIRLab, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), and Michigan State University (MSU). This work has also made use of the SPHERE Data Centre, jointly operated by OSUG/IPAG (Grenoble), PYTHEAS/LAM/CeSAM (Marseille), OCA/Lagrange (Nice), Observatoire de Paris/LESIA (Paris), and Observatoire de Lyon/CRAL, as well as being supported by a grant from Labex OSUG@2020 (Investissements d'avenir—ANR10 LABX56). This work has benefited from the 2022 Exoplanet Summer Program in the Other Worlds Laboratory (OWL) at the University of California, Santa Cruz, a program funded by the Heising–Simons Foundation.
The JWST Early Release Science Program for Direct Observations of Exoplanetary Systems. III. Aperture Masking Interferometric Observations of the Star HIP 65426 at 3.8 μm
Creators
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Ray, Shrishmoy1, 2
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Sallum, Steph3
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Hinkley, Sasha2
- Sivaramkrishnan, Anand4
- Cooper, Rachel4
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Kammerer, Jens4
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Greebaum, Alexandra Z.5
- Thatte, Deeparshi4
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Stolker, Tomas6
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Lazzoni, Cecilia2
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Tokovinin, Andrei7
- Furio, Matthew de8
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Factor, Samuel9
- Meyer, Michael8
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Stone, Jordan M.10
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Carter, Aarynn11
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Biller, Beth12
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Skemer, Andrew11
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Suárez, Genaro13
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Leisenring, Jarron M.14
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Perrin, Marshall D.4
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Kraus, Adam L.9
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Absil, Olivier15
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Balmer, William O.4, 16
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Boccaletti, Anthony17
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Bonavita, Mariangela18
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Bonnefoy, Mickael19
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Booth, Mark20
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Bowler, Brendan P.9
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Briesemeister, Zackery W.21
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Bryan, Marta L.22
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Calissendorff, Per8
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Cantalloube, Faustine23
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Chauvin, Gael24
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Chen, Christine H.4, 16
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Choquet, Elodie23
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Christiaens, Valentin15
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Cugno, Gabriele8
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Currie, Thayne25, 26
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Danielski, Camilla27
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Dupuy, Trent J.12
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Faherty, Jacqueline K.13
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Fitzgerald, Michael P.28
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Fortney, Jonathan J.11
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Franson, Kyle9
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Girard, Julien H.4
- Grady, Carol A.29
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Gonzales, Eileen C.30
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Henning, Thomas31
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Hines, Dean C.4
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Hoch, Kielan K. W.32
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Hood, Callie E.11
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Howe, Alex R.21
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Janson, Markus33
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Kalas, Paul22, 34
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Kennedy, Grant M.35
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Kenworthy, Matthew A.6
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Kervella, Pierre17
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Kuzuhara, Masayuki
- Lagrange, Anne-Marie17
- Lagage, Pierre-Olivier36
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Lawson, Kellen21
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Lew, Ben W. P.37
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Liu, Michael C.38
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Liu, Pengyu12
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Llop-Sayson, Jorge39
- Lloyd, James P.30
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Macintosh, Bruce40
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Marino, Sebastian41
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Marley, Mark S.14
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Marois, Christian42
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Martinez, Raquel A.3
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Matthews, Brenda C.42
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Matthews, Elisabeth C.43
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Mawet, Dimitri39
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Mazoyer, Johan17
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McElwain, Michael W.21
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Metchev, Stanimir44
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Meyer, Michael R.8
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Miles, Brittany E.11
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Millar-Blanchaer, Maxwell A.45
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Molliere, Paul31
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Moran, Sarah E.14
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Morley, Caroline V.9
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Mukherjee, Sagnick11
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Palma-Bifani, Paulina24
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Pantin, Eric46
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Patapis, Polychronis47
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Petrus, Simon48
- Pueyo, Laurent4
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Quanz, Sascha P.47
- Quirrenbach, Andreas49
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Rebollido, Isabel4
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Redai, Jea Adams50
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Ren, Bin B.19
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Rickman, Emily4
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Samland, Matthias31
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Schlieder, Joshua E.21
- Schneider, Glenn14
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Stapelfeldt, Karl R.51
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Tamura, Motohide52
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Tan, Xianyu53
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Uyama, Taichi5
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Vigan, Arthur23
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Vasist, Malavika15
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Vos, Johanna M.54, 13
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Wagner, Kevin14
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Wang, Jason J.39, 55
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Ward-Duong, Kimberly56
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Whiteford, Niall13
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Wolff, Schuyler G.14
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Worthen, Kadin16
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Wyatt, Mark C.41
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Ygouf, Marie51
- Zhang, Xi11
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Zhang, Keming22
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Zhang, Zhoujian11
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Zhou, Yifan9
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Zurlo, Alice57, 58
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Sargent, B. A.4, 16
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Theissen, Christopher A.32
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Manjavacas, Elena4
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Lueber, Anna59
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Kitzmann, Daniel60
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Sutlieff, Ben J.12
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Betti, Sarah K.4
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University of Queensland
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University of Exeter
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University of California, Irvine
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Space Telescope Science Institute
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Infrared Processing and Analysis Center
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Leiden University
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Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory
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University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
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The University of Texas at Austin
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United States Naval Research Laboratory
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University of California, Santa Cruz
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University of Edinburgh
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American Museum of Natural History
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University of Arizona
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University of Liège
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Johns Hopkins University
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Laboratory of Space Studies and Instrumentation in Astrophysics
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The Open University
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Grenoble Alpes University
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Friedrich Schiller University Jena
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Goddard Space Flight Center
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University of California, Berkeley
- 23. Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, CNES, LAM, 13013 Marseille, France
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Lagrange Laboratory
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The University of Texas at San Antonio
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University of Hawaii at Hilo
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Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía
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University of California, Los Angeles
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29.
Eureka Scientific
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Cornell University
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Max Planck Institute for Astronomy
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University of California, San Diego
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Stockholm University
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Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
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University of Warwick
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University of Paris
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Bay Area Environmental Research Institute
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University of Hawaii at Manoa
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California Institute of Technology
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Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology
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University of Cambridge
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National Research Council Canada
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University of Geneva
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Western University
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University of California, Santa Barbara
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Institut de Recherche sur les Lois Fondamentales de l'Univers
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ETH Zurich
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University of Valparaíso
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Heidelberg University
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Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
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Jet Propulsion Lab
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University of Tokyo
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Shanghai Jiao Tong University
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Trinity College Dublin
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Northwestern University
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Smith College
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Diego Portales University
- 58. Millennium Nucleus on Young Exoplanets and their Moons (YEMS).
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Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
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University of Bern
Abstract
We present aperture masking interferometry (AMI) observations of the star HIP 65426 at 3.8 μm, as part of the JWST Direct Imaging Early Release Science program, obtained using the Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph instrument. This mode provides access to very small inner working angles (even separations slightly below the Michelson limit of 0.5λ/D for an interferometer), which are inaccessible with the classical inner working angles of the JWST coronagraphs. When combined with JWST's unprecedented infrared sensitivity, this mode has the potential to probe a new portion of parameter space across a wide array of astronomical observations. Using this mode, we are able to achieve a 5σ contrast of ΔmF380M ∼ 7.62 ± 0.13 mag relative to the host star at separations ≳0.″07, and the contrast deteriorates steeply at separations ≲0.″07. However, we detect no additional companions interior to the known companion HIP 65426b (at separation ∼0.″82 or 87_(−31)^(+108)au). Our observations thus rule out companions more massive than 10–12 MJup at separations ∼10–20 au from HIP 65426, a region out of reach of ground- or space-based coronagraphic imaging. These observations confirm that the AMI mode on JWST is sensitive to planetary mass companions at close-in separations (≳0.″07), even for thousands of more distant stars at ∼100 pc, in addition to the stars in the nearby young moving groups and associations, as stated in previous works. This result will allow the planning and successful execution of future observations to probe the inner regions of nearby stellar systems, opening an essentially unexplored parameter space.
Copyright and License
© 2025. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.
Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
Acknowledgement
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Additional details
Related works
- Is new version of
- Discussion Paper: arXiv:2310.11508 (arXiv)
- Is supplemented by
- Dataset: 10.17909/8by2-x206 (DOI)
Funding
- Space Telescope Science Institute
- JWST-ERS-01386
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- NAS5-03127
- University of Exeter
- Global Excellence Award -
- Agence Nationale de la Recherche
- ANR10 LABX56
- Heising-Simons Foundation
Dates
- Accepted
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2025-01-19
- Available
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2025-04-09Published