Discovery of a uniquely cool and compact source at 28 parsecs from the Sun

Abstract

We present the discovery of what appears to be both a uniquely cool and old white dwarf within 30 parsecs of the sun. DES J214756.46-403529.3 is detected in four separate surveys, 50 degrees away from the Galactic Plane. The combination of its very low luminosity and spectral energy distribution suggests an object unlike any other astrophysical body currently known. Among 8,000 of the nearest single objects in the immediate solar neighbourhood, it appears completely isolated in multiple colour-magnitude diagrams. The data seem compatible with an extremely old and cool white dwarf with a helium dominated atmosphere and a mass around 0.7-0.8\,\msun\ but spectroscopic follow-up is required to confirm its nature.