Encounters in the Milky Way

Now Open

Additional ticket required. Free for Members.
Floor 1, Hayden Planetarium

A seated audience, with about thirteen people visible, in the Hayden Planetarium look up in awe at a projection of a spiral galaxy.
Alvaro Keding & Daniel Kim/© AMNH
Discover the chance encounters that have shaped our place in the universe.

Reaching billions of years into the past and peering millions of years into the future, Encounters in the Milky Way is a time-traveling journey about the cosmic movements that shape our galactic neighborhood.

Get a front-row seat to spectacular moments in our solar system's past and future, including the paths of stars, comets, interstellar debris, and visually stunning gas and dust clouds–and, visualized for the first time, a dramatic, ongoing merger of our galaxy with a smaller satellite galaxy. 

Developed by a team that includes astronomers, science visualization experts, and artists, Encounters in the Milky Way is made possible by data from one of the most transformative projects of the past century: the European Space Agency's Gaia mission, dubbed the "billion-star survey" for mapping the precise positions, distances, and motions of nearly 2 billion stars in our galaxy.

Reserve Museum Tickets »
Select the number of tickets and you will then be able to add the Space Show or other ticketed exhibitions during checkout.

The Space Show will screen in the Hayden Planetarium Space Theater, now featuring a high-resolution immersive audio system.

Length: 24 minutes
Showtimes: Every 30 minutes starting at 10:30 am. Last show is at 4:30 pm.
Captioning devices and audio description devices: Please ask a staff member
Transcript: English

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Ticketed exhibitions are always free for Members!

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Milky way in space.

Encounters in the Milky Way was developed with the major support and partnership of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
NASA logo with the words Grantee.

With deep gratitude to
Van Cleef and Arpels logo

Generously sponsored by Robert and Kristin Peck