Why do you think your paper is highly cited?

This paper presents the analysis of ultraviolet images obtained with the NASA satellite GALEX for a sample of nearby galaxies (closer than 300 million light-years) unprecedented in its size. Previous studies on ultraviolet imaging were reduced to only a handful of objects. Therefore, this new work allows, for the first time, a means to do statistics on the ultraviolet properties of nearby galaxies.

In addition to that, many astronomers now have the chance of looking at how their favorite extragalactic object looks when viewed through this new window. It's also worth noting that all images are now publicly available for astronomers to look at and also to analyze and measure the data themselves.

 Does it describe a new discovery, methodology, or synthesis of knowledge?

The work presented in this paper consists mainly of new discoveries, since very few observations of nearby galaxies had been obtained prior to GALEX. To some extent, it also introduced new methodologies, given that such a huge amount of data existed in an almost unexplored window which had to be dealt with.

 Would you summarize the significance of your paper in layman's terms?

This work has described, for the first time, how the galaxies that are closer to us look in the ultraviolet, a type of light that shows us where stars much more massive than our Sun are located in galaxies. While previous works could have only taken ultraviolet images of a handful of these galaxies, given that the ultraviolet have to be observed above the atmosphere using satellites, we (NASA's GALEX team) have observed over 1,000 of these objects and definitively characterized how the galaxies look in ultraviolet light.

 How did you become involved in this research, and were there any problems along the way?

I am part of the GALEX Science team and, between 2002 and 2005; I was a GALEX postdoc working at the Carnegie Observatories, which are part of the Carnegie Institution of Science. During that time, I worked on preparing the GALEX observations and analyzing the images obtained by the satellite which finally led to the publication of: Gil de Paz, et al., "The GALEX Ultraviolet Atlas of Nearby Galaxies," Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series 173[2]: 185-255, DEC 2007.

I must say that the professionalism of the entire GALEX team (both scientifically and technically) allowed us to make use of the images only weeks after they had been taken by the satellite. Even when we had a very small problem with one of the two detectors, the GALEX team was able to recover it successfully in just a short period of time.

 Where do you see your research leading in the future?

In 2005, I moved from the Carnegie Observatories to the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, in Spain, thanks to one contract of the European Union. Now I have a "kind-of" tenure-track position in the same University (they are called "Ramon y Cajal fellowships") and soon I should (hopefully) become a full professor here.

The experience with GALEX and the GALEX Atlas taught me that having a large program with people of different backgrounds, both scientifically and technically, is a major key to success. I hope we begin here in Spain to believe in such a philosophy and start thinking big. Although these may not be the best economic times to start thinking large-scale, perhaps this could be precisely the best moment to try.

 Do you foresee any social or political implications for your research?

The only implication which I can envision may come from the fact that, despite GALEX being a modestly small explorer (in NASA's terms) it is providing huge scientific revenue with some major discoveries having already been accomplished. Sometimes, the opening of a new research window is quite simply a good investment, whereas exploring it even further can be rewarding and should be encouraged much more that I think it is at the present time.

Armando Gil de Paz
Ramón y Cajal Associate Professor
Astrophysics Department (GUAIX group)
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Madrid, Spain
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KEYWORDS: HUBBLE-SPACE-TELESCOPE; COMPACT DWARF GALAXIES; STAR-FORMATION HISTORY; EXTRAGALACTIC DISTANCE SCALE; CAMPANAS IMAGING ATLAS; SMALL-MAGELLANIC-CLOUD; CANES VENATICI CLOUD; R-SURFACE PHOTOMETRY; GIANT BRANCH STARS; EVOLUTION-EXPLORER.