UNAH Journals Portal

Author Guidelines

EDITORIAL POLICIES

*Revista Ciencias Espaciales* is a biannual publication of the Faculty of Space Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH). One volume, consisting of two issues, is published each calendar year. The first issue is the "Spring" issue (published no later than June 15th), and the second is the "Autumn" issue (published no later than December 15th); both issues include articles in the fields of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Geographic Information Science and Technology, Archaeoastronomy and Cultural Astronomy, Aeronautical Sciences, Astronautical Sciences, and related disciplines.

*Revista Ciencias Espaciales* is governed by an Editorial Board comprising a director, an editor-in-chief, editors representing specific fields of knowledge, and invited external academics. They are responsible for receiving manuscripts and managing the article selection, editing, and publication processes. The journal also maintains an International Scientific Council responsible for ensuring the quality of the journal's content. The names of the Director, Editor-in-Chief, and members of the Editorial Board and Scientific Council are listed on the inside front cover.

*Revista Ciencias Espaciales* publishes original research that adheres to the ethical standards and best practices characteristic of scientific and academic publications. Accordingly, it follows the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors—based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (https://publicationethics.org/become-member)—and the UNAH Research Ethics Manual (https://diciht.unah.edu.hn/dmsdocument/973-serie-4). Published articles may cover scientific research within the fields associated with the Faculty of Space Sciences. Authors are solely responsible for the content of their articles. All articles undergo a double-blind peer review process. *Ciencias Espaciales* publishes only original articles, employing specialized plagiarism-detection software to guarantee the originality of submitted works. Non-original articles may only be published under agreements with other publications in the same disciplines covered by *Ciencias Espaciales*; such instances must be explicitly noted in a footnote within the relevant articles.

The editorial board reserves the right to reject or return for revision any article deemed incomplete or unsuitable. Prior to publication, authors must provide evidence of having obtained necessary permissions to use figures and data. For multi-authored articles, evidence must be provided that all co-authors consent to publication.

*Ciencias Espaciales* is indexed in the Central American Journal Online (CAMJOL) and Latindex databases.

Ethics Policy

Authors submitting work to *Ciencias Espaciales* for review and publication are expected to uphold high professional ethical standards, reflected in the following areas:

• Originality: The manuscript must be the product of original research. Authorship is restricted to those who participated in the design, data acquisition, analysis and interpretation, drafting or critical revision of the document, approval of the final version, and acceptance of responsibility for the content. Honorary or ghost authorship is not accepted. Furthermore, the manuscript must not be under consideration by other publications during the *Ciencias Espaciales* editorial process, thereby precluding duplicate publication. At least 80% of the work must be original; the remaining 20% ​​(non-original content) may consist of a continuation of previously published work.
• Transparency: All papers published in *Revista Ciencias Espaciales* are expected to provide the original data underlying their results and conclusions, or—at a minimum—include a link to a repository where such data can be accessed for analysis and/or replication by peers (e.g., using repositories such as GitHub, GitLab, Zenodo, or others).
• Responsibility: Authors are responsible for the results and conclusions presented in their original research papers, as well as for protecting any third-party intellectual property utilized in the development of the research.
• Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI): The use of AI in drafting the manuscript must be declared in the Methodology section. Under no circumstances may AI be considered an author of the manuscript. The specific AI tool used, its version, the purpose of its use, and the extent of its intervention in the document must be disclosed. AI may be used to assist with drafting, translation, or stylistic editing, but it does not replace the author's intellectual responsibility. The extent of AI usage will be assessed using specialized software designed to detect plagiarism and/or the use of generative AI tools.

Policy on Plagiarism

Specialized plagiarism detection software is used; a maximum similarity rate of 20% against other publications is expected. Such similarity may be attributed to writing styles specific to the discipline or to the use of previously published works—whether in *Revista Ciencias Espaciales* or other journals in the field—as a starting point for the current study.

If the software detects a higher percentage, the journal will contact the author to share the plagiarism analysis results and establish an action plan to reduce the detected level. If plagiarism is evident, the manuscript will be returned with an official notification from the journal informing the author of the editorial decision not to publish the article. Additionally, a one-year penalty will be imposed, during which the author is barred from submitting manuscripts to *Revista Ciencias Espaciales*; any submissions made during this period will be immediately rejected.

Copyright Policy

Copyright for publications belongs to the author(s), who grant *Revista Ciencias Espaciales* and its readers a Creative Commons license for distribution—specifically, Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA)—in accordance with the "Mexico Declaration in favor of the Latin American non-commercial open access ecosystem."

Under this license, the reader has the right to:

• BY Clause (Attribution): Copy, distribute, display, and perform the work and create derivative works, provided the work is acknowledged and cited in the manner specified by the author or licensor;
• NC Clause (Non-Commercial): Copy, distribute, display, and perform the work and create derivative works for non-commercial purposes;
• SA Clause (ShareAlike): Distribute derivative works under a license identical to the license governing the original work.

Authors are responsible for the content of their articles and for ensuring that their documents are submitted in the proper format, including obtaining the necessary permissions to include figures, photographs, tables, or other protected material.

Conflict of Interest Policy

The editors of *Revista Ciencias Espaciales* are responsible for selecting peer reviewers to evaluate manuscripts. Peer reviewers are expected to disclose any potential conflict of interest regarding a manuscript upon first reviewing it. This same expectation applies to the journal's editors, who must disclose any such conflicts upon receiving a document to initiate the editorial process.

Policy on Complaints and Disputes

Any complaints or disputes concerning an article published in *Revista Ciencias Espaciales* shall be submitted to the General Research Council of the Faculty of Space Sciences—the faculty to which the journal is affiliated. This Council may seek consultation or advice from the UNAH Research Ethics Committee to resolve conflicts related to research ethics.

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

For Editors

Manuscripts are evaluated by the editorial board in consultation with double-blind peer reviewers. Authors may suggest external reviewers, but the journal does not guarantee the acceptance of recommended reviewers. The Editorial Board guarantees the anonymity of both reviewers and authors and holds the final decision regarding the publication of manuscripts. Authors are informed of the acceptance or rejection of their manuscript.

The review and publication process for each article is as follows: 1) receipt of the article from the author by the editor in charge of the relevant Faculty department; 2) forwarding of the manuscript and review form to blind peer reviewers, with a commitment to maintaining the confidentiality of all information regarding the work, even if it is not published; 3) informing the author of observations made so that they may correct the text and incorporate changes suggested by the reviewers; 4) decision and notification regarding the article's acceptance or rejection by the editorial board; 5) publication of the article in the corresponding volume and issue.

For Authors

Privacy Statement: The names and email addresses entered in this journal will be used exclusively for the purposes stated by the journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other person.

Each article submitted for publication in *Revista Ciencias Espaciales* must be organized into sections. All sections must be single-spaced and follow the template available at https://www.camjol.info/index.php/CE/announcement/view/28. The order of sections is as follows:

• Title
• Abstract (in Spanish)
• Abstract (in English)
• Introduction
• Methodology
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusions
• Acknowledgments (if deemed necessary)
• References

Title

• Written in uppercase, centered, and placed at the top of the page. The title must be concise yet informative. Its purpose is to convey the article's essential content to the reader. It must not exceed 15 words.
• Author(s) name(s). Write the full name(s) of the author(s), indicating academic degree, affiliation, email address, and—preferably—the ORCID identifier.

Abstract in Spanish

An abstract in Spanish must be included, with the following characteristics:

• It must have a maximum of 250 words.
• The structure must cover the study's objective; methodology, techniques, or basic procedures used; key results; and main conclusions. Emphasis should be placed on the most novel or significant aspects of the study or observations.
• The abstract must not include bibliographic citations, acronyms, or abbreviations, unless they are standard, widely recognized ones.
• Under the "Keywords" heading, immediately following the abstract, include 3 to 5 keywords to facilitate article indexing.

Abstract in English

An abstract and keywords must also be provided in English.

Article Body

At the beginning of each section, first-level headings must be written in bold, italicized title case (uppercase and lowercase). Second-level headings must be written in bold title case. Third-level headings must be written in italicized title case. Numbering for the various levels must follow the template used by *Revista Ciencias Espaciales*, available at http://faces.unah.edu.hn/revistace/ and https://www.camjol.info/index.php/CE/index.

It is recommended that the body of the article be structured into the following sections: Introduction, Methodology, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions.

Introduction. The purpose of this section is to place the reader within the context of the research; therefore, it must clearly state the research's aim. It is important to clearly present the objectives, theoretical framework, the problem addressed, and—where applicable—the hypothesis. The study's justification should be stated concisely.

Methodology. In general terms, this refers to the structured approach used to obtain knowledge or information through the research. In practical terms, it is the method selected to address the problem under study while ensuring scientific rigor. It may include aspects such as the research setting, the subject(s) of study, sample size, working conditions, and data collection and analysis methods.

Results. Present the results using tables and figures, following a logical sequence. Do not repeat data from the tables and figures in the text; instead, highlight their most relevant aspects. Remember that tables and figures must be numbered sequentially and always referenced in the text. Results should be stated clearly, concretely, and understandably for the reader; naturally, they must derive from the research process described in the article.

Discussion. This section should focus on the research results, emphasizing the study's new and significant aspects. It should not repeat—in detail—data or information already included in previous sections. Study limitations and implications for future research should be reported. Where possible, observations should be compared with those from other relevant studies.

Conclusions. These are propositions or ideas resulting from the research conducted; consequently, they must relate to the study's objectives. Ensure that your conclusions are based on solid and sufficient data.

Acknowledgments. Acknowledgments are included at the end of the text. This should be a very brief section acknowledging individuals who collaborated on the research or institutions that supported the development of the work. Entities that provided financial support and other resources should also be included in the acknowledgments.

Cited references

The list of cited references and the in-text citations must match and be accurate. All references cited in the text must also appear in the reference list, and all listed references must be mentioned in the text.

References within the text must include the author's surname and the year of publication. The reference list should be compiled according to the 7th edition of the APA style guidelines, distinguishing between citations referring to a single author or multiple authors of an article, a book author, a book section or chapter, a periodical, or an online source. Accordingly, all sources supporting the research and directly used in the work must be included.

Figures and tables

Figures and tables must be submitted separately in PDF, JPG, PNG, TIFF, or GIF format (with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi). Image credits must be included in the figure captions. It is preferable to use images created by the article's author(s). Images created by someone other than the article's author(s) require proper authorization. If data tables are imported from other software as image files, they will be treated as figures; alternatively, they may be created within the text using the table design function in Word or LaTeX, in accordance with the relevant template format.

Abbreviations and symbols

Use only commonly accepted acronyms, abbreviations, and symbols (e.g., UN, UNESCO, ICAO). Avoid abbreviations in the title and abstract. When an abbreviation or acronym is used for the first time in the text, it must be preceded by the full term, unless it is a standard unit of measurement.

General recommendations for manuscript submission

When submitting the manuscript, authors should keep the following in mind:

• The entire manuscript must be submitted as a single document, using 11-point Palatino font.
• Pages must be numbered consecutively, starting with the title page and ending with the final cited reference.
• Include permissions for the reproduction of previously published material, the use of figures or illustrations that could identify individuals, or images subject to copyright. Attach the copyright transfer agreement and any relevant forms.
• Authors from outside the Faculty of Space Sciences must submit the manuscript via email to: revista.cespaciales@unah.edu.hn.