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Bright M Dwarf All-Sky Catalog

Metadata Updated: September 19, 2025

This table contains an all-sky catalog of M dwarf stars with apparent infrared magnitude J < 10. The 8889 stars are selected from the ongoing SUPERBLINK survey of stars with proper motion mu > 40 mas yr<sup>-1</sup>, supplemented on the bright end with the Tycho-2 catalog. Completeness tests which account for kinematic (proper motion) bias suggest that this catalog represents ~75% of the estimated ~11,900 M dwarfs with J < 10 expected to populate the entire sky. The catalog is, however, significantly more complete for the northern sky (~90%) than it is for the south (~60%). Stars are identified as cool, red M dwarfs from a combination of optical and infrared color cuts, and are distinguished from background M giants and highly reddened stars using either existing parallax measurements or, if such measurements are lacking, using their location in an optical-to-infrared reduced proper motion diagram. These bright M dwarfs are all prime targets for exoplanet surveys using the Doppler radial velocity or transit methods; the combination of low-mass and bright apparent magnitude should make possible the detection of Earth-size planets on short-period orbits using currently available techniques. Parallax measurements, when available, and photometric distance estimates are provided for all stars, and these place most systems within 60 pc of the Sun. Spectral type estimated from V-J color shows that most of the stars range from K7 to M4, with only a few late M dwarfs, all within 20 pc. Proximity to the Sun also makes these stars good targets for high-resolution exoplanet imaging searches, especially if younger objects can be identified on the basis of X-ray or UV excess. For that purpose, we include X-ray flux from ROSAT and FUV/NUV ultraviolet magnitudes from GALEX for all stars for which a counterpart can be identified in those catalogs. Additional photometric data include optical magnitudes from Digitized Sky Survey plates and infrared magnitudes from the Two Micron All Sky Survey. This table was first created by the HEASARC in October 2011 based on electronic versions of Tables 1 and 2 from the reference paper which were obtained from the AJ web site. A slightly revised version based on corrected versions of the input tables received from the author was ingested in December 2011. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025
Publisher High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center
Maintainer
Identifier ivo://nasa.heasarc/mdwarfasc
Data Last Modified 2025-09-10
Category Astrophysics
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 4dbbe059-1be7-4f7c-8be6-15d39822de67
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/W3Browse/all/mdwarfasc.html
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash ebe1c4f090bf50abf1d0cc0a9644d5687171058ef1e89356fdc5c614129599dc
Source Schema Version 1.1

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