The Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX). Its legacy of UV surveys, and
  science highlights
  The Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) imaged the sky in the Ultraviolet (UV)
for almost a decade, delivering the first sky surveys at these wavelengths. Its
database contains far-UV (FUV, $\lambda$$_{eff}$ $\sim$ 1528\AA) and near-UV
(NUV, $\lambda$$_{eff}$ $\sim$ 2310\AA) images of most of the sky, including
deep UV-mapping of extended galaxies, over 200 million source measurements, and
more than 100,000 low-resolution UV spectra. The GALEX archive will remain a
long-lasting resource for statistical studies of hot stellar objects, QSOs,
star-forming galaxies, nebulae and the interstellar medium. It provides an
unprecedented road-map for planning future UV instrumentation and follow-up
observing programs in the UV and at other wavelengths. We review the
characteristics of the GALEX data, and describe final catalogs and available
tools, that facilitate future exploitation of this database. We also recall
highlights from the science results uniquely enabled by GALEX data so far.
