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astro-ph.EP · Earth and Planetary Astrophysicsastro-ph.IM · Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Two JWST visits show no detected 15 or 18 µm core flux change in WD 1856+534

We compare public JWST MIRI images of WD 1856+534 from 29 July 2024 and 28 July 2025. This test addresses possible time or viewing-direction changes in the unresolved white dwarf and planet. We use 16 calibrated detector images, a radius-4-pixel aperture, a local background plane, and 87 blank sky positions. We add an independent 2% error allowance per visit. The core flux changes by −1.99% ± 3.70% in F1500W and +1.09% ± 5.03% in F1800W, with one-standard-deviation errors. Approximate 95% intervals are −9.24% to +5.26% and −8.77% to +10.95%. The combined archive images give similar core results. Three comparison sources show small changes. Larger target apertures give larger decreases and strong dither scatter, so this result does not establish constant total flux or planet temperature. Archive barycentric times and two published ephemerides place the visits at phases 0.709–0.729 and 0.264–0.286. They do not reproduce the 2024 phase range stated in the first MIRI paper. Both visits show similar projected dayside fractions under a circular orbit. The package contains lossless image crops, source hashes and URLs, code, tables, figures, and reproduction steps.

WD 1856+534 · white dwarf planets · JWST · MIRI · infrared photometry · repeat imaging · orbital phase · public astronomical data

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References

6
  1. usesdoi:10.48550/arXiv.2504.16982

    The first MIRI emission result supplies the observing context and phase range checked here.

  2. doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10514-7

    The NIRSpec atmosphere result and its temperature difference from MIRI motivate the repeat-flux test.

  3. usesdoi:10.1093/mnras/stad766

    Table 2 supplies the transit epoch and period used to calculate orbital phase.

  4. usesdoi:10.3847/1538-3881/ae8c30

    The constant-period fit with TESS supplies an independent phase check.

  5. usesdoi:10.48550/arXiv.2409.10443

    The MIRI calibration study gives the time response and repeatability context.

  6. usesdoi:10.17909/t8t4-6775

    This MAST dataset identifies the first-visit observations. The input manifest specifies exact archive products from both visits.

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