The Space Science field includes journals that cover the following topics:

The top 20 institutions are a representation of academic and government institutions throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. The international cooperative effort of various research projects is evident in the presence of several heavily cited reports, such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, measurements of the Hubble constant, and evolution of the mass density and cosmological constant energy density of the universe from 42 high-redshift supernovae.

Leading the way is Germany’s Max Planck Society, with 7,527 papers cited a total of 132,360 times to date. Among this institution’s highly cited papers are such topics as cold dark matter halos, stellar evolutionary tracks, high-energy gamma-ray sources, and LASCO, the Large Angle Spectroscopic Coronagraph.

Close on Germany’s heels is NASA, with 7,181 papers cited a total of 127,287 times to date. NASA’s most-cited papers, with well over 1,000 citations each, are two reports of the first-year data for the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). The Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope for the SOHO mission, gamma-ray bursts, cosmic microwave background observations, and extrasolar giant planets and brown dwarfs are among NASA’s other highly cited topics.

Caltech ranks at #3, with 4,756 papers cited a total of 107,958 times to date. Among Caltech’s projects garnering citation attention are the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, high-redshift galaxies in the Hubble deep field, and Lyman-break galaxies.

Ranking at #4 is the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, with 4,226 papers cited a total of 88,127 times to date. These papers include such topics as cosmic microwave background anisotropies, supernovae discoveries from the Hubble Space Telescope, and the report of the key Hubble project of measuring the Hubble constant.

The fifth institution is the University of California, Berkeley, with 3,203 papers cited a total of 80,313 times to date. Berkeley’s researchers have worked on such highly cited projects as measuring the mass density and cosmological constant energy density of the universe from high-redshift supernovae and developing full-sky dust maps.

The first British institution is the University of Cambridge, which ranks at #7 with 2,741 papers cited a total of 68,831 to date. Cambridge is involved in the Hubble Space Telescope project, as well as in using supernovae to measure the mass density and cosmological constant energy density of the universe. The second British institution on this list is the University of Durham, ranking at #20 with 987 papers cited a total of 33,334 times to date.

Other European institutions on the list include the European Southern Observatory, which ranks at #10 with 2,631 papers cited a total of 51,935 times to date, Observatoire de Paris, which ranks at #16 with 2,863 papers cited 36,646 times to date, and Italy’s Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, which ranks at #17 with 2,202 papers cited a total of 36,152 times to date. Representing Asia is the University of Tokyo, which ranks at #15 with 2,080 papers cited a total of 36,677 times to date.

The top 20 institutions in Space Science are listed in full in the table below: