Euclid: Early Release Observations -- A glance at free-floating new-born planets in the sigma Orionis cluster

Understand

We provide an early assessment of the imaging capabilities of the Euclid space mission to probe deeply into nearby star-forming regions and associated very young open clusters, and in particular to check to what extent it can shed light on the new-born free-floating planet population.

• This paper focuses on a low-reddening region observed in just one Euclid pointing where the dust and gas has been cleared out by the hot sigma Orionis star.
• One late-M and six known spectroscopically confirmed L-type substellar members in the sigma Orionis cluster are used as benchmarks to provide a high-purity procedure to select new candidate members with Euclid.
• The exquisite angular resolution and depth delivered by the Euclid instruments allow us to focus on bona-fide point sources.