The ALMA Science Archive has received substantial feature upgrades, some of which have been worked on for years.

The ALMA Science Archive Query Interface now allows users to search for lines that have been detected by ADMiT in the public ALMA data products. Users can not only search for molecules and transitions, but redshifts and source velocities or line intensities. Previews are also included for the detected lines. The Request Handler download interface has also received an upgrade - it now shows the hierarchy of the data structure in a modern, intelligently scrollable way where the displayed information can be easily expanded and collapsed. A new powerful search bar at the top allows users to filter the displayed rows by text-, unix-pattern or regular-expression search. The output can be sorted, and a quick-select menu allows users to perform the most-used selections. 

On June 27th, ALMA and its scientific community reached a major scientific milestone with the publication of the 5000th refereed paper based on ALMA data. This achievement comes just 14 years after the start of Early Science operations and reflects ALMA’s extraordinary scientific impact. All of these ALMA publications and data are accessible through the ALMA Science Archive at almascience.org/aq.

ALMA would like to thank and congratulate the many scientific teams and individuals who have made excellent use of ALMA observations in these publications to advance the understanding of our cosmic origins. The scientific impact of ALMA continues to grow. Publications based on ALMA data have accumulated more than 210,000 citations, establishing ALMA as one of the most productive and scientifically impactful astronomical facilities in the world.

Since 2021, ALMA has used a distributed peer review model instead of traditional panel-based review. In a recent study, John Carpenter and Andrea Corvillon analysed more than 20,000 proposals and over 160,000 individual reviews over 13 ALMA cycles (Cycles 0–12) to examine whether the statistical patterns of proposal evaluation changed. Overall, the study finds that the outcomes of distributed peer review are statistically consistent with those of traditional panel review. You can read a summary of the result on the ALMA website and the paper accepted for publication in PNAS.

On 16 June 2026, ESO's ALMA Support Centre hosted the ALMA Band 2 Production Completion Event. 36 participants from the Band 2 consortium, contributing European institutes, industry partners, and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) travelled to ESO Garching to celebrate this important milestone for ALMA. Together with ESO staff, more than 70 people attended the associated workshop and celebration activities throughout the day.

Advanced data products (ADPs) are becoming increasingly important at modern radio observatories, helping transform complex observational datasets into more accessible, science-ready resources. Products such as enhanced images, spectral products, catalogs, or other higher-level derived datasets can reduce the effort required for scientific analysis and broaden access to archival data. To better understand how such products are currently used, and what additional capabilities may be most valuable to the community in the future, the Advanced Data Products Coordination Group (ADPCG), with members from various radio observatories and the broader community, is conducting a short survey on the usage and potential needs for advanced data products. We warmly encourage all members of the radio astronomy community to participate and share their perspective.

ADPCG Community Survey 2026 – Fill out form

A detailed report of the Cycle 13 Proposal Submission Statistics is now available. The report provides a summary of items such as the number of submitted proposals and time requested, subscription rates, and comparisons with the number of hours requested in previous Cycles.

In Cycle 13, the number of proposals and requested time reached all-time highs. The European oversubscription rate also reached an all-time high of 10.2.

The report can be downloaded as a pdf document.

The ALMA Observatory has released data acquired in one of the Observatory Projects, 2024.A.00047.S. The data can be accessed through this link. ALMA Science Archive links for all the Observatory Projects can also be accessed from this main page for the Observatory Projects.

In preparation for the Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade (WSU) programme, a team lead by Faouzi Boussaha from the Instrumental Research and Development group at LUX – Paris Observatory (France) has started a new ALMA development study to contribute to the development of the next generation of SIS (Superconductor–Insulator–Superconductor) detectors for ALMA's Band 9. The goal of the study is to double the instantaneous IF bandwidth and significantly increase the sensitivity, requiring a new generation of ultra-sensitive detector elements known as SIS junctions. Specifically, the study plans to use the Aluminium Oxide technology but will investigate new substrates such as silicon on insulator.