The scientific assessment of the 1381 science proposals submitted for ALMA Early Science Cycle 2 has been completed. Seventy-eight science assessors from all over the world have evaluated the expected scientific value of these proposals. As a result, the most promising proposals of each ALMA region have been selected as those most likely to be completed using the ALMA Cycle 2 capabilities.

Principal Investigators (PIs) have been notified of the outcome of the Proposal Review Process by email. The 353 highest-priority projects (see Joint ALMA Observatory’s web page) cover a wide range of science and are distributed across the five broad ALMA science categories as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Distribution of the highest-priority Cycle 2 projects across the ALMA science categories (Category 1: Cosmology and the high redshift universe; Category 2: Galaxies and galactic nuclei; Category 3: Interstellar medium, star formation and astrochemistry; Category 4: Circumstellar disks, exoplanets and the solar system; Category 5: Stellar evolution and the Sun).

78 world-leading experts in their area of astronomical research scientifically evaluated the 1,381 proposals received for Cycle 2 Early Science observations with the radio telescope, which represent a demand of more than 7.000 hours of observation. In this cycle, about 1,700 hours of observation were distributed among the selected proposals.