The ALMA Science Archive has reached several milestones

We are pleased to announce that the recent software releases brought several long-standing ALMA Science Archive (ASA) milestones to our users.

• The new ALMA query interface now has completely replaced the original interface
  The interface provides instantaneous as-you-type search, very fast responses, clickable footprints, a background-slider, a viewer of the spectral coverage of the search results including the most relevant lines for ALMA, a simultaneous search of observations, projects and publications, bookmark capability ... and much more.
• Improved downloads with the new ALMA Request Handler backend
  The backend software of the ALMA Request Handler, which processes the download requests from the ASA, has been completely rewritten, providing much more robust and faster downloads.

• All FITS files are now accessible individually
  For all data from Cycle 1 onwards, all FITS files and README files can now be accessed file-by-file without needing to download huge tar files.

• SV data can be searched for
  The Science Verification data has been ingested into the ASA and can be discovered through searches. Future Science Verification data, Engineering data as well as data contributions from Large Programs will be added into the ASA, too. This procedure takes time and so a certain delay to move the data from the Science Portal into the ASA is to be expected.

• Virtual Observatory services available
  Three VO services are now available for the ASA: The Obscore Table Access Protocol ObsTAP, the Simple Image Access SIAv2 as well as a DataLink service. They can be accessed through VO tools like Aladin and Topcat. If such VO tools are running on your computer and you are using a Firefox or Chrome browser, you can directly send search results from the new ALMA Archive query interface to the VO tools by clicking on the rocket symbol above the result table.

• Improved astroquery
  The astroquery.alma module now uses ALMA's new VO services as engine.

• Updated README files and QA reports
  Over 5000 README files have been replaced with far more useful versions and QA0 and QA2 reports for Cycles 5+ have been added where they were not yet present.

• 1PB of ALMA data
  More than 1PB of data has now accumulated in the ASA

• ARI-L products available
  The first 74000 ARI-L FITS files are available for download. The next software release allows to subfilter the result-table by collection, for example by 'ari_l'.

Please do not hesitate to contact us through the Helpdesk for comments and suggestions. The results of the Archive User Survey 2019 continue to be carefully analysed.