Starry Nights: Fridays Under The Sphere
October’s Starry Nights: Fridays Under the Sphere will feature the uncommon music of Vinicius Cantuaria, composer, guitarist, singer, and one of Brazil’s most promising contemporary artists. His fresh take on bossa nova has reawakened interest in the smart and sultry style. Born in Manaus in the heart of the Amazon and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Cantuaria has spent the last six years in New York City, where he feels he can “be more Brazilian.”
Top Way To Time Travel: Openspace
And then theres OpenSpace. Developed by a team that includes the Museum, Swedens Linkoping University, Visualization and Data Analysis lab at New York Universitys Polytechnic School of Engineering, and the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute at the University of Utah, this next-generation visualization software is supported by NASA and available for anyone to download and usethough its hard to beat seeing it on the Hayden Planetariums dome.
Unlike Uniview, the code can be tinkered with to accommodate larger data sets and to create sophisticated maps to explore data through timesuch as fast-forwarding one million years to see if other planetary systems will make a close flyby past our own.
Like the other instruments, OpenSpace isnt just for showits also a powerful research and teaching tool. Scientists, artists, and educators are all working in the same digital medium, using many of the same software tools, so the line from researchers to the public is much shorter, says Vivian Trakinski, the Museums director of science visualization and project manager on the OpenSpace team.
Last spring, following the release of the European Space Agencys Gaia observatorys second catalog, which includes distances to 1.4 billion stars, Faherty worked with Abbott to render the Gaia data in OpenSpace.
Plus, where else do you get to drive around the universe but here? she says.
A version of this story appeared in the Spring issue of the Member magazine,
Later Additions Restorations And Renovations
Since 1930, little has been added to the exterior of the original building. The architect Kevin Roche and his firm Roche-Dinkeloo have been responsible for the master planning of the museum since the 1990s. Various renovations to both the interior and exterior have been carried out. Renovations to the Dinosaur Hall were undertaken beginning in 1991, and the museum also restored the mural in Roosevelt Memorial Hall in 2010. In 1992 the Roche-Dinkeloo firm designed the eight-story AMNH Library. However, the entirety of the master plan was ultimately not fully realized, and by 2015, the museum consisted of 25 separate buildings that were poorly connected.
The museum’s south façade, spanning 77th Street from Central Park West to Columbus Avenue was cleaned, repaired, and re-emerged in 2009. Steven Reichl, a spokesman for the museum, said that work would include restoring 650 black-cherry window frames and stone repairs. The museum’s consultant on the latest renovation is Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc., an architectural and engineering firm with headquarters in Northbrook, Illinois.
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Arthur Ross Hall Of Meteorites
The Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites contains some of the finest specimens in the world including Ahnighito, a section of the 200-ton Cape York meteorite which was first made known to non-Inuit cultures on their investigation of Meteorite Island, Greenland. Its great weight, 34 tons, makes it the largest displayed in the Northern Hemisphere. It has support by columns that extend through the floor and into the bedrock below the museum.
The hall also contains extra-solar nanodiamonds more than 5 billion years old. These were extracted from a meteorite sample through chemical means, and they are so small that a quadrillion of these fit into a volume smaller than a cubic centimeter.
Things To Know Before You Go
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All theaters in the American Museum of Natural History, including the Hayden Planetarium, include wheelchair locations and companion seats.
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The museum has plenty of food and drink options, including the Museum Food Court, the Café on One, and the Café on Four.
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Although the planetarium is safe for kids of all ages, those under 5 may not understand some of the sophisticated commentary.
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Avoid waiting in long lines by purchasing tickets in advance.
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The Hayden Planetarium Space Theater Within The American Museum Of Natural History Reopened Wednesday For The First Time Since March 2020
UPPER WEST SIDE, NY The American Museum of Natural History is one of the most well-known cultural institutions in the country, and there is maybe no more iconic element of it than the Hayden Planetarium Space Theater.
On Wednesday, the planetarium theater reopened for the first time since March 2020.
The decision to welcome people back to the Upper West Side planetarium theater corresponded with the reopening of movie theaters across New York City this month.
Hall Of Reptiles And Amphibians
The Hall of Reptiles and Amphibians serves as an introduction to herpetology, with many exhibits detailing reptile evolution, anatomy, diversity, reproduction, and behavior. Notable exhibits include a Komodo dragon group, an American alligator, Lonesome George, the last Pinta Island tortoise, and poison dart frogs.
In 1926, W. Douglas Burden, F.J. Defosse, and Emmett Reid Dunn collected specimens of the Komodo Dragon for the museum. Burden’s chapter “The Komodo Dragon”, in Look to the Wilderness, describes the expedition, the habitat, and the behavior of the dragon.
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Hall Of Birds Of The World
The global diversity of bird species is exhibited in this hall. 12 dioramas showcase various ecosystems around the world and provide a sample of the varieties of birds that live there. Example dioramas include South Georgia featuring king penguins and skuas, the East African plains featuring secretarybirds and bustards, and the Australian outback featuring honeyeaters, cockatoos, and kookaburras.
Exclusion Of Pluto As A Planet
The exhibits highlight human connection to the cosmos along with the scale and properties of the observable universe itself. The new Rose Center opened on 19 February 2000 with a model of only eight planets, excluding Pluto, when there has not been a scientific consensus whether it is a planet or not, and much of the American public thought of it as the ninth planet. On 22 January 2001, almost a year later, the New York Times reported it on its front page and led to much media attention and public controversy.
The Hayden Planetarium has, since 2000, been one of the two main attractions within the Rose Center. It was established by the State of New York in 1933, some of the funding coming from philanthropist Charles Hayden. The top half of the Hayden Sphere houses the Star Theater, which uses high-resolution fulldome video to project space shows based on scientific visualization of current astrophysical data, in addition to a customized ZeissStar Projector system replicating an accurate night sky as seen from Earth.
The Hayden Planetarium offers a number of courses and public presentations including the Frontiers of Astrophysics and Distinguished Authors lecture series.
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Nyc’s Hayden Planetarium Show ‘worlds Beyond Earth’ Is Stunning And Poignant
“Worlds Beyond Earth,” the new space show at the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History hits it out of the park, taking viewers on a stunning, visceral journey through space using real and beautiful data.
The show, narrated by Academy Award-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o, begins on Earth. You follow a rocket launch to the moon’s surface, where an Apollo lunar lander touches down. From here, you follow along with different spacecraft, like the Huygens probe, from the Cassini-Huygens mission, which landed on Saturn’s moon Titan, and NASA’s Rosetta spacecraft, which studied the comet 67P .
You can almost feel yourself landing on Titan or flying through Saturn’s rings. The show doesn’t just take you on a tour of the most incredible worlds in our little corner of the universe, but really creates a visceral, exploratory experience. You’re not just seeing beautiful imagery of these worlds and objects you’re traveling to them.
Whitney Memorial Hall Of Oceanic Birds
This particular hall has undergone a complicated history over the years since its founding in 1953. Frank Chapman and Leonard C. Sanford, originally museum volunteers, had gone forward with creation of a hall to feature birds of the Pacific islands. In the years up to its founding, the museum had engaged in various expeditions to Fiji, New Zealand, and the Marianas to collect birds for the exhibit. The hall was designed as a completely immersive collection of dioramas, including a circular display featuring birds-of-paradise. In 1998, The Butterfly Conservatory was installed inside the hall originally as a temporary exhibit, but as the popular demand of the exhibit increased, the Hall of Oceanic Birds has more or less remained closed by the museum.
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Milstein Hall Of Ocean Life
The Milstein Hall of Ocean Life focuses on , botany and . The hall is most famous for its 94-foot -longblue whale model, suspended from the ceiling behind its dorsal fin.
The upper level of the hall exhibits the vast array of ecosystems present in the ocean. Dioramas compare and contrast the life in these different settings including polar seas, kelp forests, mangroves, coral reefs and the bathypelagic. It attempts to show how vast and varied the oceans are while encouraging common themes throughout. The lower, and arguably more famous, half of the hall consists of several large dioramas of larger marine organisms. It is on this level that the famous “Squid and the Whale” diorama sits, depicting a hypothetical fight between the two creatures. Other notable exhibits in this hall include the Andros Coral Reef Diorama, which is the only two-level diorama in the Western Hemisphere. One of the most famous icons of the museum is a life-sized fiberglass model of a 94-foot long Atlantic blue whale. The whale was redesigned dramatically in the 2003 renovation: its flukes and fins were readjusted, a navel was added, and it was repainted from a dull gray to various rich shades of blue. Upper dioramas are smaller versions of the ecosystems when the bottom versions are much bigger and more life like.
History
Allison And Roberto Mignone Halls Of Gems And Minerals
The Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals houses thousands of rare gems, minerals specimens and pieces of jewelry. The halls closed in 2017 to undergo a $32 million redesign by Ralph Appelbaum Associates and reopened to the general public in June 2021. The redesigned exhibits adopt newer philosophies in exhibit design, including a focus on storytelling, interactivity, and connecting ideas across disciplines. The halls explore a range of topics, including the diversification of mineral species over the course of Earth’s history, plate tectonics, and the stories of specific gems.
The halls display rare samples chosen from among the more than 100,000 pieces in the museum’s collection including the Star of India, the Patricia Emerald, and the DeLong Star Ruby.
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Assorted faceted and polished minerals
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Quartz var. amethyst geode
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Real Science Brought To Life
“Worlds Beyond Earth” does an incredible job of immersing the audience in, and showcasing the wonders of the solar system with the help of real-life data from agencies like NASA. “The visuals that you see are all authentic artifacts of our exploration,” Trakinski told Space.com in 2019.
“My hope for this show is that it’s an emotional experience, as well as an intellectual journey,” Trakinski said at the preview event. “Our ability to work with this incredible data, that really heightens that experience. It closes the gap between our communication of the science, and experiencing the science itself.”
The event also comes to life with the help of a brand-new projection system. Installed last year in the Hayden Planetarium, the new high-dynamic range laser system displays the widest range of color of any planetarium in the world. This not only allows for the colors in the worlds shown to pop, but also allows the depth of the black of space to appear as brilliantly as possible.
This new system “really gives that punch, and it allows us to visualize these things as though we were really there,” Carter Emmart, the director of astrovisualization at the museum and the director of “Worlds Beyond Earth,” said at the preview event.
Natural History Museum / Planetarium
Is the planetarium separate from the main museum, or part of the full ticket price?
Also, is there a stand alone planetarium in
The planetarium has always been an extra charge in addition to the museum admission which is pay what you wish. There are some package tickets that include this and the IMAX and other special exhibits.
I am not aware of any other planetariums in the city.
Edited: 6 years ago
If you mean planetarium show it is extra, but the space exhibit is part of the museum and included.
If you like planetariums, it’s well worth the extra cost.
For me, a trip to the AMNH isn’t even worth the time w/o the planetarium.
…and I mean the above more as a compliment to the planetarium than a criticism of the rest. The space show makes the experience for me.
The Hayden Planetarium show, as stated above, is extra.
The other components of the Rose Center for Earth & Space are included with AMNH general admission:
Hall of the Universe
No – I have never seen anything else like this planetarium anywhere else I have been and many parts are included with the pay what you wish of the museum itself . I have been to natural history museums in other places and this one is miles above them – esp the dinos, gems & minerals, human evolution as well as the special exhibits.
New York City
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You Can Now Experience All That The American Museum Of Natural History Has To Offer Once Again
Though the iconic New York museum reopened back in September, the Hayden Planetarium where visitors can journey into space right from NYC thanks to a state-of-the-art immersive theater had to wait until movie theaters were allowed to reopen in NYC.
With that being official as of March 5, today the Planetarium is officially reopening to the public. The Space Theater features a custom-made Zeiss Mark IX Star Projector and a Digital Dome Projection System to display a hyperrealistic view of the planets, star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies, uses a scientifically accurate 3D map of the observable universe based on millions of astronomical observations.
Guests will be able to watch the breathtaking new space show Worlds Beyond Earth, which only premiered for a few months until everything shut down. Narrated by Academy Award winner Lupita Nyongo, it explores surprisingly dynamic nature of the worlds that share our solar system and the unique conditions that make life on Earth possible, and was the first new planetarium show in seven years.
To adhere to the reduced capacity requirement, there will only be 48 guests allowed in the theater for each showing, and they will take place from 10:30 a.m. onward. Register in advance for tickets here.
featured image source: Shutterstock
Planetarium At The Museum Of Natural History
entrance to the planetarium seems to include the museum as well, which is fine but we are more interested in the planetarium. can anyone give us thoughts on the time we should spend there for our itinerary? we are with two kids 9 and 11.
It depends. Are you interested in seeing “Cosmic Collisions”? If you are, in which case you would be spending more time there than if you walked around and looked at the exhibits.
If you are into the “heavens,” you can easily spend a couple hours or more at the Rose Planetarium. The building itself is very impressive in terms of design and internal flow .
Make sure you buy tickets for the planetarium theatre show, where you sit in comfy chairs, recline back a bit, and watch an incredible sound and light show on the ceiling. It is certainly the best of its kind in the world. Very memorable. While we really like the planetarium, we always find the building a bit confusing and some of the information, and the way its presented, relatively complex. Still, go see the two museums, then take a walk around the upper west side. Have fun.
New York City
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Warburg Hall Of New York State Environments
Warburg Hall of New York State Environments is a one-story hall on the museum’s ground floor in between the Hall of North American Forests and the Grand Hall. Based on the town of Pine Plains and near-by Stissing Mountain in Dutchess County, the hall gives a multi-faceted presentation of the eco-systems typical of New York. Aspects covered include soil types, seasonal changes, and the impact of both humans and nonhuman animals on the environment. It is named for the German-American philanthropist, Felix M. Warburg. Originally known as the “Hall of Man and Nature”, Warburg Hall opened in 1951. It has changed little since and is now frequently regarded for its retro-modern styling. The hall shares many of the exhibit types featured throughout the museum as well as one display type, unique to Warburg, which features a recessed miniature diorama behind a foreground of species and specimens from the environment depicted.
