Journal ArticleA Wide Planetary Mass Companion Discovered through the Citizen Science Project Backyard Worlds: Planet 9Faherty, Jacqueline K.; Gagné, Jonathan; Popinchalk, Mark; Vos, Johanna M.; Burgasser, Adam J.; Schümann, Jörg; Schneider, Adam C.; Kirkpatrick, J. Davy; Meisner, Aaron M.; Kuchner, Marc J.; Bardalez Gagliuffi, Daniella C.; Marocco, Federico; Caselden, Dan; Gonzales, Eileen C.; Rothermich, Austin; Casewell, Sarah L.; Debes, John H.; Aganze, Christian; Ayala, Andrew; Hsu, Chih-Chun; Cooper, William J.; Smart, R. L.; Gerasimov, Roman; Theissen, Christopher A.Abstract Through the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 citizen science project we discovered a late-type L dwarf co-moving with the young K0 star BD+60 1417 at a projected separation of 37″ or 1662 au. The secondary—CWISER J124332.12+600126.2 (W1243)—is detected in both the CatWISE2020 and 2MASS reject tables. The photometric distance and CatWISE proper motion both match that of the primary within ∼1 σ and our estimates for a chance alignment yield a zero probability. Follow-up near-infrared spectroscopy reveals W1243 to be a very red 2MASS ( J – K s = 2.72), low surface gravity source that we classify as L6–L8 γ . Its spectral morphology strongly resembles that of confirmed late-type L dwarfs in 10–150 Myr moving groups as well as that of planetary mass companions. The position on near- and mid-infrared color–magnitude diagrams indicates the source is redder and fainter than the field sequence, a telltale sign of an object with thick clouds and a complex atmosphere. For the primary we obtained new optical spectroscopy and analyzed all available literature information for youth indicators. We conclude that the Li i abundance, its loci on color–magnitude and color–color diagrams, and the rotation rate revealed in multiple TESS sectors are all consistent with an age of 50–150 Myr. Using our re-evaluated age of the primary and the Gaia parallax, along with the photometry and spectrum for W1243, we find T eff = 1303 ± 31 K, log g = 4.3 ± 0.17 cm s −2 , and a mass of 15 ± 5 M Jup . We find a physical separation of ∼1662 au and a mass ratio of ∼0.01 for this system. Placing it in the context of the diverse collection of binary stars, brown dwarfs, and planetary companions, the BD+60 1417 system falls in a sparsely sampled area where the formation pathway is difficult to assess.2021-12-0110338557The Astrophysical Journal9231480004-637Xhttps://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac24992009136; 2009177National Science Foundation