LAMOST Project and Its Scientific Goals

The LAMOST is a meridian reflecting Schmidt telescope with a clear aperture of 4-meter, a focal length of 20-meter and a field of view of 5-degree.Using active optics technique to control its reflecting correcto rmakes LAMOST an unique astronomical instrument in combining a large aperture with a wide field of view.The available large focal plane of 1.75-meter in diameter may accommodate up to 4000 fibers, by which the collected light of distant and faint celestial objects down to 20.5 magni tude is fed into the spect rographs, promising a very high spectrum acquiring rate of several ten-thousands of spectra per night. The spectroscopic survey carried out by LAMOST of tens of millions of glaxies and others will make substantial contribution to the study of extra-galactic ast rophysics and cosmology, such as galaxies, quasars and the large-scale structure of the universe.Its spectroscopic survey of large number of stars will make substantial contribution to the study of stellar astrophy sics and the Galaxy.Its spect roscopic survey combining with the surveys in other wavebands, such as radio, infrared, X-ray and γ-ray will make substantial contribution to the cross-identification of multiwaveband of celestial objects.