Overview of the LAMOST survey in the first decade

TL;DR

The paper reviews a decade of LAMOST's astronomical survey, highlighting its extensive data collection of stars, galaxies, and quasars, and its significant contributions to understanding the Milky Way and the Universe.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of LAMOST's survey characteristics, data releases, and scientific achievements over ten years, emphasizing its impact on astrophysics.

Findings

Over 10 million stellar spectra released

Discovered ~220,000 galaxies and ~71,000 quasars

Enhanced understanding of the Milky Way's structure

Abstract

The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST), also known as the Guoshoujing Telescope, is a major national scientific facility for astronomical research located in Xinglong, China. Beginning with a pilot survey in 2011, LAMOST has been surveying the night sky for more than 10 years. The LAMOST survey covers various objects in the Universe, from normal stars to peculiar ones, from the Milky Way to other galaxies, and from stellar black holes and their companions to quasars that ignite ancient galaxies. Until the latest data release 8, the LAMOST survey has released spectra for more than 10 million stars, ~220,000 galaxies, and ~71,000 quasars. With this largest celestial spectra database ever constructed, LAMOST has helped astronomers to deepen their understanding of the Universe, especially for our Milky Way galaxy and the millions of stars within it. In this article, we briefly review the characteristics, observations, and scientific achievements of LAMOST. In particular, we show how astrophysical knowledge about the Milky Way has been improved by LAMOST data.