We have carried out a survey of the north and south ecliptic poles, EP-N and EP-S, respectively, with the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The primary objective was to cross-calibrate WISE with the Spitzer and Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) photometric systems by developing a set of calibration stars that are common to these infrared missions. The ecliptic poles were continuous viewing zones for WISE due to its polar-crossing orbit, making these areas ideal for both absolute and internal calibrations. The Spitzer IRAC and MIPS imaging survey covers a complete area of 0.40 deg 2 for the EP-N and 1.28 deg 2 for the EP-S. WISE observed the whole sky in four mid-infrared bands, 3.4, 4.6, 12, and 22 μm, during its eight-month cryogenic mission, including several hundred ecliptic polar passages; here we report on the highest coverage depths achieved by WISE, an area of ∼1.5 deg 2 for both poles. Located close to the center of the EP-N, the Sy-2 galaxy NGC 6552 conveniently functions as a standard calibrator to measure the red response of the 22 μm channel of WISE. Observations from Spitzer-IRAC/MIPS/IRS-LL and WISE show that the galaxy has a strong red color in the mid-infrared due to star-formation and the presence of an active galactic nucleus (AGN), while over a baseline >1 year the mid-IR photometry of NGC 6552 is shown to vary at a level less than 2%. Combining NGC 6552 with the standard calibrator stars, the achieved photometric accuracy of the WISE calibration, relative to the Spitzer and MSX systems, is 2.4%, 2.8%, 4.5%, and 5.7% for W1 (3.4 μm), W2 (4.6 μm), W3 (12 μm), and W4 (22 μm), respectively. The WISE photometry is internally stable to better than 0.1% over the cryogenic lifetime of the mission. The secondary objective of the Spitzer-WISE Survey was to explore the poles at greater flux-level depths, exploiting the higher angular resolution Spitzer observations and the exceptionally deep (in total coverage) WISE observations that potentially reach down to the confusion limit of the survey. The rich Spitzer and WISE data sets were used to study the Galactic and extragalactic populations through source counts, color-magnitude and color-color diagrams. As an example of what the data sets facilitate, we have separated stars from galaxies, delineated normal galaxies from power-law-dominated AGNs, and reported on the different fractions of extragalactic populations. In the EP-N, we find an AGN source density of ∼260 deg −2 to a 12 μm depth of 115 μJy, representing 15% of the total extragalactic population to this depth, similar to what has been observed for low-luminosity AGNs in other fields.

We present the discovery of another seven Y dwarfs from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). Using these objects, as well as the first six WISE Y dwarf discoveries from Cushing et al., we further explore the transition between spectral types T and Y. We find that the T/Y boundary roughly coincides with the spot where the J − H colors of brown dwarfs, as predicted by models, turn back to the red. Moreover, we use preliminary trigonometric parallax measurements to show that the T/Y boundary may also correspond to the point at which the absolute H (1.6 µm) and W2 (4.6 µm) magnitudes plummet. We use these discoveries and their preliminary distances to place them in the larger context of the Solar Neighborhood. We present a table that updates the entire stellar and substellar constinuency within 8 parsecs of the Sun, and we show that the current census has hydrogen-burning stars outnumbering brown dwarfs by roughly a factor of six. This factor will decrease with time as more brown dwarfs are identified within this volume, but unless there is a vast reservoir of cold brown dwarfs -2invisible to WISE, the final space density of brown dwarfs is still expected to fall well below that of stars. We also use these new Y dwarf discoveries, along with newly discovered T dwarfs from WISE, to investigate the field substellar mass function. We find that the overall space density of late-T and early-Y dwarfs matches that from simulations describing the mass function as a power law with slope −0.5 < α < 0.0; however, a power-law may provide a poor fit to the observed object counts as a function of spectral type because there are tantalizing hints that the number of brown dwarfs continues to rise from late-T to early-Y. More detailed monitoring and characterization of these Y dwarfs, along with dedicated searches aimed at identifying more examples, are certainly required.2 Our team also maintains ancillary lists of candidates with bluer colors or fainter magnitudes, but those are beyond the scope of this paper. AAT/IRIS2The IRIS2 instrument (Tinney et al. 2004) at the 3.9m Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) at Siding Spring Observatory, Australia, provides wide-field imaging (7. ′ 7×7. ′ 7) using a 1024×1024 (0. ′′ 4486 pixel −1 ) Rockwell HAWAII-1 HgCdTe infrared detector. Our observation of WISE 2220−3628 used only the J filter, which is on the MKO-NIR system (Tokunaga et al. 2002). Data collection and reduction for this instrument are described in Tinney et al. (in prep.). CTIO/NEWFIRMThe NOAO Extremely Wide Field Infrared Imager (NEWFIRM; Swaters et al. 2009) at the 4m Victor M. Blanco Telescope on Cerro Tololo, Chile, uses four 2048×2048 InSb arrays arranged in a 2×2 grid. With a pixel scale of 0. ′′ 40 pixel −1 , this grid covers a total field of view of 27. ′ 6×27. ′ 6. Only one of our new Y dwarfs, WISE 0734−7157, was acquired with this instrument and it was observed only at J band, which is on the MKO-NIR system. Observing and reduction strategies are described in Kirkpatrick et al. (2011). SOAR/SpartanIRCThe Spart...

We present the discovery of seven ultracool brown dwarfs identified with the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). Near-infrared spectroscopy reveals deep absorption bands of H 2 O and CH 4 that indicate all seven of the brown dwarfs have spectral types later than UGPS J072227.51−054031.2, the latest type T dwarf currently known. The spectrum of WISEP J182831.08+265037.8 is distinct in that the heights of the J-and H-band peaks are approximately equal in units of f λ , so we identify it as the archetypal member of the Y spectral class. The spectra of at least two of the other brown dwarfs exhibit absorption on the blue wing of the H-band peak that we tentatively ascribe to NH 3 . These spectral morphological changes provide a clear transition between the T dwarfs and the Y dwarfs. In order to produce a smooth near-infrared spectral sequence across the T/Y dwarf transition, we have reclassified UGPS 0722−05 as the T9 spectral standard and tentatively assign WISEP J173835.52+273258.9 as the Y0 spectral standard. In total, six of the seven new brown dwarfs are classified as Y dwarfs: four are classified as Y0, one is classified as Y0 (pec?), and WISEP J1828+2650 is classified as >Y0. We have also compared the spectra to the model atmospheres of Marley and Saumon and infer that the brown dwarfs have effective temperatures ranging from 300 K to 500 K, making them the coldest spectroscopically confirmed brown dwarfs known to date.

Using albedos from WISE/NEOWISE to separate distinct albedo groups within the Main Belt asteroids, we apply the Hierarchical Clustering Method to these subpopulations and identify dynamically associated clusters of asteroids. While this survey is limited to the ∼ 35% of known Main Belt asteroids that were detected by NEOWISE, we present the families linked from these objects as higher confidence associations than can be obtained from dynamical linking alone. We find that over one-third of the observed population of the Main Belt is represented in the high-confidence cores of dynamical families. The albedo distribution of family members differs significantly from the albedo distribution of background objects in the same region of the Main Belt, however interpretation of this effect is complicated by the incomplete identification of lowerconfidence family members. In total we link 38298 asteroids into 76 distinct families. This work represents a critical step necessary to debias the albedo and size distributions of asteroids in the Main Belt and understand the formation and history of small bodies in our Solar system.