ALMA Reaches 5,000 Scientific Publications and Strengthens Its Global Legacy

Since 2018, research based on ALMA data has produced, on average, more than one refereed scientific paper per day, reflecting a level of productivity that places the observatory among the most influential astronomical facilities in the world.

ALMA has achieved a major scientific milestone: 5,000 refereed publications based on its observations. This milestone not only demonstrates the observatory’s technological maturity, but also the enduring value of the daily work of the people and teams who make ALMA possible.

The pace of scientific output has accelerated. Since the first ALMA papers were published in 2012, annual output has grown, reaching a record 575 refereed publications in 2025. This rate means that, on average, the international astronomical community publishes more than one paper per day using ALMA data.

“This milestone reflects not only the extraordinary capabilities of ALMA, but also the creativity and commitment of the international scientific community that continues to push the observatory in new scientific directions,” said John Carpenter, ALMA Observatory Scientist.

The Value of the Science Archive and Global Science from Chile

One of the observatory’s greatest strengths lies in its Science Archive, which demonstrates that ALMA data continue to generate discoveries long after the original observations are conducted. Nearly 30% of total papers (1,514 publications) used archival data, a trend that grew significantly from 21% in 2018 to 35% in 2025.

“Maintaining ALMA’s publication record allows us to see not only how scientific output has grown, but also how the observatory’s data continue to generate new results long after the original observations were made,” said Felix Stoehr, ALMA Science Archive Subsystem Scientist. “The increasing use of archival data shows how ALMA’s scientific legacy continues to expand with every new observation.”

This milestone also highlights the contributions of the scientific community in Chile, ALMA’s host country. Researchers affiliated with Chilean institutions have contributed to nearly a quarter of all publications using observatory data. Furthermore, nearly 200 papers have had a first author affiliated with an institution in Chile.

A Growing Legacy

According to a July 2026 query of the NASA Astrophysics Data System, the first 5,000 publications had accumulated nearly 217,000 citations. Among the landmark results in this body of work are the first Event Horizon Telescope results on black holes in M87 and at the center of the Milky Way, the first high-resolution ALMA observations of the planet-forming disk around HL Tau, and the Disk Substructures at High Angular Resolution Project, known as DSHARP.

These 5,000 publications do not represent an endpoint, but rather a foundation for new discoveries. The Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade (WSU) will significantly expand the observatory’s instantaneous spectral coverage and improve its sensitivity, opening new opportunities to study everything from cold molecular gas and complex chemistry to planet formation and distant galaxies. “The most exciting thing about this milestone is knowing how much there is still left to discover,” concluded Carpenter.

The statistics presented in this announcement are analyzed in further detail in the peer-reviewed paper “ALMA Publication Statistics,” by F. Stoehr et al., published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.