Find public Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations in the official ALMA Science Archive. Search by source name or sky coordinates, check whether a matching project is public, then inspect its available products before downloading. You can preview FITS images in a browser with CARTA or use ALMA’s notebooks to query archive metadata programmatically.
Start in the ALMA Science Archive
Open the archive from the ALMA Science Portal. The archive covers PI-proposal observations, including both public and proprietary data; other ALMA collections are linked separately from the portal. Public data can be downloaded anonymously. Proprietary data require appropriate authenticated access, or a project PI can delegate access to another registered ALMA user. The official ALMA Science Archive Manual describes the archive and its workflow.
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Search for observations that match your question
- Search by target. Enter a source name or sky coordinates to find observations near the object or position of interest.
- Refine the results. Use science keywords and observing metadata such as band, frequency coverage, angular resolution, sensitivity, date, array, and project code.
- Compare candidates against your intended measurement. Check frequency coverage, resolution, sensitivity, array configuration, date, integration time, and release status. No single combination is best for every science goal: for example, the resolution and sensitivity you need depend on the scale and brightness of the signal you intend to study.
- Check release status. Regular and Large Program observations generally become public after a 12-month proprietary period. The manual says Director’s Discretionary Time observations generally have no proprietary period, subject to exceptions.
The manual also explains how to search for public observations that have not yet been published. An observation’s public status and publication history are separate questions: use the archive’s status information to determine access, rather than assuming an unpublished dataset is unavailable.
Choose products and download carefully
Select the observations and inspect the available products in the Request Handler before requesting a download. Depending on the cycle and dataset, a bundle may include FITS images and auxiliary files, and the contents can vary. The archive generates a shell script for selected products and supports parallel download streams.
#1 Best Overall
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- Review the selected files and product types so you download what you need, not an unnecessarily large bundle.
- Check that you have enough storage and a reliable connection. ALMA warns that archive data can be very large; it reports producing roughly 200 to 300 TB of raw data and reduced products per year in its March 2025 manual.
- If a generated download script fails, consult the current archive documentation. The documentation page lists a Cycle 0 script-download issue and suggests saving the file directly through the Request Handler in that case; this is a page-listed caveat, not confirmation that the issue is currently occurring.
Preview or explore the data
Inspect FITS images in CARTA
The archive manual documents opening archive FITS products in CARTA in a browser. For spectral cubes, channel inspection lets you move through the frequency dimension and examine how emission changes across channels before deciding whether further analysis is needed.
Query the archive programmatically
For repeatable or broader discovery, ALMA provides Jupyter notebooks demonstrating archive queries with TAP, ADQL, and PyVO. This route is useful when you want to search metadata systematically rather than manually repeat searches in the web interface.
Rank #2
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Continue with scientific processing
For calibration and further analysis, follow the CASA and pipeline material linked from ALMA’s documentation index. Archive browsing and previewing help identify useful observations, but they are not substitutes for processing appropriate to your scientific use.
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Look beyond the main PI-program archive when needed
The Science Portal lists additional collections, including Large Program products, Science Verification, ARI-L representative images, the calibrator catalogue, and externally contributed holdings such as EHT data. Follow the dedicated portal entry for the collection you need: search and delivery paths may differ, so do not assume every collection is handled exactly like the main archive.
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Troubleshoot archive searches and downloads
ALMA’s archive documentation notes that TotalPower footprints may not display their full extent. If a footprint looks smaller than expected, treat the display as a possible limitation and consult the current archive documentation rather than ruling out the observation on the map alone. For changing controls or download behavior, use that documentation as the current reference.
Quick Recap
Best Value
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