Overview

• Published in MNRAS, the system UPM J1040−3551 AabBab lies about 82 light-years away in the constellation Antlia.
• Researchers used Gaia and WISE to identify a common-motion wide pair, then SOAR spectroscopy to confirm spectral types and temperatures.
• The architecture is hierarchical, with two M-type red dwarfs and a close pair of T-type brown dwarfs separated by 1,656 astronomical units.
• The inner binaries orbit over decades, while the wide orbit around a common center of mass exceeds 100,000 years.
• H-alpha emission indicates an age of roughly 0.3–2 billion years, establishing the first known configuration of this kind as a benchmark and a priority for high-resolution imaging to obtain dynamical masses.