Find a Mars-bound spaceship, glimpse a near-Earth asteroid, watch a lunar elevator take off from the Moon, and more in this new augmented reality (AR) app created as a companion to the Museum’s exhibition Beyond Planet Earth: The Future of Space Exploration, which opens November 19.

On Tuesday, the Museum got a visit from some of the stars of its newest exhibition.

NASA astronauts Michael Massimino and John Grunsfeld, crew members on mission STS-125 to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, joined Curator Michael Shara for a Q&A in the Cullman Hall of the Universe on Tuesday, November 15. The astronauts’ repair mission is featured in one of the dioramas of the Museum’s special exhibition Beyond Planet Earth: The Future of Space Exploration, which opens Saturday, November 19, and is curated by Dr. Shara.

Seventeen-year-old Ryan wanted to understand whether the popular insect repellant DEET, worn by many tourists to ward off mosquitoes, had any effect on the dinoflagellates in these bays. His investigation, outlined in the essay The Effects of DEET on the Bioluminescent Dinoflagellate, Pyrocystis fusiformis, earned Ryan one of this year’s Young Naturalist Awards.

Yuanchen Liu, who directed To the Light, a profile of Chinese coal miners, was named the winner of the 2011 Margaret Mead Filmmaker Award at the Margaret Mead Film Festival’s closing night on Sunday, November 13. The award honors filmmakers that embody the spirit of renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead while showing artistic excellence and originality of storytelling.

The American Museum of Natural History houses the largest collection of bird specimens in the world. Representing all continents and nearly 99 percent of avian species, these specimens help researchers study the evolutionary history of birds and patterns of geographic variation. In the video below, Department of Ornithology Collections Manager Paul Sweet offers a behind-the-scenes look at the collection and its role in scientific research and conservation.