connections to other exhibits

Other exhibits in the Museum provide opportunities for students to reinforce, enrich, and extend their exploration of meteorites and their connections to the origin of the universe, planetary formation, and evolution.

Rose Center for Earth and Space

Cullman Hall of the Universe

The Willamette Meteorite
©AMNH
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This permanent exhibition hall on the lower level of the Rose Center illuminates the stunning discoveries of modern astrophysics. Here students can examine such questions as how the universe evolved into galaxies, stars, and planets and how the atoms from which we are made were created in the hearts of stars. The hall provides hands-on interactive exhibits. The display "Impacts and Cratering" features the 15-ton Willamette meteorite.

Hayden Planetarium

On the top level of the Hayden Sphere students can view a show in the Space Theater. Using advanced visual technology, the space shows provide realistic, sophisticated, and exciting journeys through the cosmos.

The bottom level of the Hayden Sphere houses the Big Bang Theater, where students can explore the beginning of time and space by experiencing a dramatic, multi-sensory re-creation of the first moments of the universe.

Heilbrunn Cosmic Pathway

Using a range of media, text, graphic panels, and samples, this gently sloping 360-foot-long walkway explores the 13 billion years of cosmic evolution.

Scales of the Universe

This walkway, on the second level of the Rose Center, illustrates the vast range of size in the universe, from the enormous expanse of our observable universe to the smallest subatomic particles. Through text panels, interactive computer stations, and models, the exhibit introduces students to the relative sizes of galaxies, stars, planets, and atoms.

The Gottesman Hall of Plant Earth

In the exhibit "How has Earth evolved?" students can explore the early events in the Earth's 4.6-billion-year history. The exhibit illustrates the evolution of Earth from when the planet took shape around a molten iron core to the earliest signs of life. Also presented is evidence of the evolution of the Earth's atmosphere, as seen in a 2.4-billion-year-old specimen of a banded iron formation from Ontario, Canada. A display featuring meteorites can also be found in this hall.

The Dinosaur Halls

A cross-section of rock containing the 65-million-year-old asteroid impact ejecta layer is displayed between the Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs and the Hall of Primitive Mammals. Here students can further explore the widely held theory that an asteroid impact 65 million years ago led to the extinction of the dinosaurs and other animals.

The Harry Frank Guggenheim Hall of Minerals

The minerals in this hall are systematically arranged according to their chemical properties. Students can examine minerals composed of a single element, such as gold and copper, and groups that combine several elements, such as silicates. A meteorite is displayed to the left as you enter the hall.