Brief overview of the journal's trajectory
The Revista Mexicana de Astronomía y Astrofísica (RMxAA acronym) was founded in 1974 with the objective of disseminating Latin American astronomical research in all branches of astronomy, astrophysics, and related topics. The journal's predecessor is the Boletín de los Observatorios de Tonantzintla y Tacubaya, which was distributed in various astronomical institutions from 1952 to 1972.
The Editorial Group that founded RMxAA was made up of Eugenio E. Mendoza, Paris Pishmish, and Silvia Torres de Peimbert, all leaders of the astronomical community in Mexico. Initially, the RMxAA Editorial Board consisted of three people, and included at different times, in addition to the founding group, astronomers Jorge Cantó, Carlos Cruz González, Claudio Firmani, and Luis F. Rodríguez. After 20 years since its foundation, the journal was edited by Paris Pishmish and Silvia Torres. Since 2001, Christine Allen took the role of main editor and guided the publication with a firm hand. It is thanks to the effort of the editorial group and the trust of hundreds of authors that for many years RMxAA positioned itself as the highest-impact scientific journal in Mexico and Latin America. Today, RMxAA receives contributions from institutions on all continents.
During the initial period and until 1994, RMxAA, in addition to publishing original research articles, also included special volumes issued as the proceedings of 13 astronomical symposia in the region. Later, in 1995, it spun off this second activity, giving rise to the Revista Mexicana de Astronomía y Astrofísica Serie de Conferencias (RMxAC acronym), dedicated exclusively to publishing proceedings with the results of astronomical meetings. The editor of RMxAC is Silvia Torres.
Since its foundation, it has been free and open access for people and institutions related to the fields covered by the journal. RMxAA receives manuscripts from specialists in many parts of the world, and its content covers a great diversity of topics. The format of this publication was printed and distributed free of charge to the libraries of organizations conducting astronomical research in at least 50 countries. Since 2000, the complete collection has also been presented digitally and in open access. Starting in 2025, following current trends, the presentation is exclusively digital.
Number of articles
The total number of peer-reviewed articles in RMxAA from 1974 to March 2026 is 1245. RMxAA annually publishes between 20 and 35 articles per year, for example in 2025 it published 36 and in 2024 it published 31, while for 2026, there are 20 published and accepted articles from issues 1 and 2 (the latter will be published on July 1st).
Table 1 presents the list of articles published since 1974. It should be clarified that from 1974 to 1995, both peer-reviewed articles and conference or symposium proceedings were published in the main journal, but in 1995 the Conference Series (RMxAC) began, so since that year the main journal (RMxAA) only publishes peer-reviewed articles. In the second column of the table, the contributions indicated as non-peer-reviewed in years after 1994 correspond to author obituaries or errata, which have been published since the journal's inception.
Part of RMxAA's impact is reflected in the citations to published articles, which to date are approximately 16,800 (Source: Astrophysical Data System).
External authorship
For over 50 years, the Revista Mexicana de Astronomía y Astrofísica has published original research articles written by individuals or author groups affiliated with the host institution (Institute of Astronomy, UNAM), other Mexican institutions (other institutes at UNAM and at other universities and research centers), and institutions located in over 70 countries. RMxAA is therefore considered a global journal.
According to data from the Astrophysical Data System (ADS), up to June 2026 there are 1058 unique author names across 1245 peer-reviewed articles, with 93 unique affiliations. A total of 438/1245 contributions (35.1%) indicate affiliation of at least one person attached to the host institution in authorship groups and 129/1245 (10.4%) to other institutes at UNAM.