Astrophysics Wrapped 2025: Year-in-Review of Every Astrophysics arXiv Paper from 2025

Abstract

Astrophysics has experienced an overwhelming increase in research output, as is evident from the year-over-year increase in the number of research papers submitted to the online repository arXiv. As a result, keeping up with progress happening outside our respective sub-fields can be exhausting. While it is impossible to be informed on every single aspect of every sub-field, this paper aims to be the next best thing. We present a summary of statistics for every paper uploaded onto the Astrophysics arXiv over the past year - 2025. We analyse a host of metrics like the most used keywords, subfields and telescopes, the distribution of journals, the most studied astrophysical objects like GW, GRB, FRB events, exoplanets and much more. We also indexed the authors' affiliations to put into context the global distribution of research and collaboration. Combining this data with the citation information of each paper allows us to understand how influential different papers have been on the progress of the field this year. We also present a first of its kind Astrophysical Spectral Fingerprint showing the distribution of research across the electromagnetic spectrum as well as the distribution of research by redshift. Overall, these statistics highlight the general current state of the field, the hot topics people are working on and the different research communities across the globe and how they function. We hope that this is helpful for both students and professionals alike to adapt their current trajectories to better benefit the field.