Magnitude 15.26 | Constellation Norma | |
Similar LHS 292, DEN 1048−3956, SCR 1845‑6357, WISE 1506+7027, Teegarden's star | ||
2MASS J154043.42−510135.7 (2M1540) is a red dwarf of spectral type M7, located in constellation Norma at approximately 15 light-years from Earth. It was discovered in 2014. It is the nearest known M7 dwarf.
Discovery
Discovery of 2M1540 was announced in 2014 by Kirkpatrick et al. and independently by Pérez Garrido et al.
Kirkpatrick and colleagues found few thousands of new high proper motion objects under the AllWISE program of study of images, taken by Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). 2M1540 was one of these high proper motion objects. They named it WISEA J154045.67-510139.3 and assigned it spectral type M6.
Pérez Garrido and colleagues found this M-type dwarf, looking for high proper motion sources in the 2MASS–WISE cross-match. They named it 2MASS J154043.42−510135.7 (2M1540) and classified it as an M7.0±0.5 dwarf.
Since trigonometric distance of 2M1540 agree with its spectrophotometric distances, computed for single object, it was concluded that it is not an equal-mass binary.