Many ongoing (SDSS-SEGUE, SDSS-APOGEE, RAVE) and future (HERMES, 4MOST) surveys have the main goal to map the complex kinematical and chemical substructure of the Galaxy. The final aim is to constrain the assembly and chemical enrichment histories of the Milky Way. In addition, by exploiting the combination of asteroseismic data from Kepler and Corot satellites for giant stars with the abundance and kinematical information provided by ground-based surveys, it should be possible to obtain precise ages for large samples of stars.

I will give a brief overview of the most recent results based both on SEGUE, RAVE and CoRoT, and present an overview of the main goals of 4MOST.

Download the video:
07-04-2012_The_formation_of_the_Milky_Way.avi (76min, 160MB)