# # Program information file # PROGRAM_ID 2021A007 PROGRAM_TITLE Characterizing a New Young Nearby Association PROGRAM_INV1 Taran Esplin PROGRAM_INV2 Kevin Luhman PROGRAM_INV3 PROGRAM_INV4 PROGRAM_INV5 PROGRAM_SCICAT stellar PROGRAM_ABSTRACT_BEG Using high-precision proper motions and parallaxes from Gaia DR2, we have discovered ~250 candidate young stars and brown dwarfs near the Corona Australis star-forming region [~ 2 Myr] that appear to comprise a new association with an age of ~ 15 Myr and a distance of ~ 150 pc. We have obtained spectra for 90 of the candidates, all of which are confirmed as young. The distribution of magnitudes of the remaining candidates indicate that the region may have an initial mass function [IMF] different from all other nearby star-forming regions. Given the importance of nearby associations for studies of star and planet formation, we propose to obtain SpeX spectra of the remaining ~86 candidate young stars and brown dwarfs with K> 10.5 to measure their spectral types and verify their youth and confirm whether the region hosts an anomalous IMF. Observations will be obtained in Prism mode [R=100] with SNR >= 30, which is sufficient for measuring M spectral types. PROGRAM_ABSTRACT_END