ALMA is very pleased to share the positive news that science observations re-started on 17 March 2021. These were the first Cycle 7 data to be acquired since the Observatory shutdown, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, in March 2020. The first newly-acquired datasets have now been calibrated and imaged, and have successfully passed the ALMA quality assurance stages.

The ALMA Director, on behalf of the Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) and the partner organizations in East Asia, Europe, and North America, is pleased to announce the ALMA Cycle 8 2021 Call for Proposals (CfP) for scientific observations to be scheduled from October 2021 to September 2022. More detail can be found on the ALMA Science Portal.

ALMA is introducing distributed peer review in Cycle 8 2021. To optimize the success of this review method, all PIs are invited to update their "Expertise" on the ALMA Science Portal. This information will be used to best match propsals with their referees.

The European ALMA Regional Centre invites all European ALMA users to a virtual community assembly on 19 March at 12:30 CET. At this community meeting, we will update you on the current and upcoming observing cycle and address FAQs on how PI science will be carried out. Also we can answer any questions you may have on your ALMA projects and support from the European ARC network. The meeting can be accessed at this link.

ALMA anticipates restarting limited science operations in March 2021 with at least thirty-two and eight antennas on the 12-m and 7-m arrays, respectively. The array configuration is planned to be C43-4/C43-5, which will roughly correspond to the array when the operations were suspended in March 2020. 

The Cube Analysis and Rendering Tool for Astronomy (CARTA), a new image visualization and analysis tool designed for ALMA, VLA, and SKA pathfinders, has been integrated into the ALMA Science Archive (ASA). Now all 500,000+ science FITS files in the ALMA archive can be previewed using CARTA (Cycle 0 excluded).

The I-TRAIN session in May will serve as a tutorial on self-calibration of ALMA data. The session will be held online on Tuesday May 25, 2021, 11:00 CEST [Zoom link]. In this session you will learn how to self-calibrate your interferometric images to improve their image fidelity. In particular, you will learn criteria to decide whether to self-calibrate, what preparation is needed, how to choose parameter values - and when to stop - and thus, how to improve the image dynamic range and bring faint details out of the noise.

The German ARC node offers hands-on training in the reduction and analysis of ALMA data in their online Master-level course "Radio Interferometry 2021" which runs from April to July 2021. More information can be found here.