Earth and Space Tour

From moon rocks to meteorites, explore the Rose Center for Earth and Space on this self-guided tour.

For free guided tours during your visit, check tour listings.

For turn-by-turn navigation during your visit, as well as behind-the-scenes stories about exhibits, quizzes, and more, download the Museum’s free Explorer app.

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Scales of the Universe

Displayed along the 400-foot-long walkway that hugs the glass curtain wall on the second level of the Rose Center for Earth and Space, the Scales of the Universe vividly illustrates the vast range of sizes in the universe, from subatomic particles and objects on the human scale to the largest objects in the observable cosmos. The exhibit features realistically rendered planets, including a 9-foot-diameter model of Jupiter and Saturn with rings 17 feet in diameter, that hang from the ceiling.

Floor: 2nd Floor | Exhibit Hall: Scales of the Universe

Harriet and Robert Heilbrunn Cosmic Pathway

The Harriet and Robert Heilbrunn Cosmic Pathway is a 360-foot-long path in the Rose Center for Earth and Space that spirals from the exit of the Hayden Big Bang Theater to the base of the Hayden Sphere, laying out the 13-billion-year history of the universe.

Floor: 2nd Floor | Exhibit Hall: Harriet and Robert Heilbrunn Cosmic Pathway

The Willamette Meteorite

Billions of years ago, an early planet orbiting the Sun was shattered, perhaps in a collision with another protoplanet.

Floor: Lower Level | Exhibit Hall: Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Hall of the Universe

Large sealed glass sphere contains a complete ecosystem of plants and animals, which recycle nutrients and obtain energy from sunlight.

Ecosystem Sphere

This sealed sphere contains a complete ecosystem of plants and animals, which recycle nutrients and obtain energy from sunlight.

Floor: Lower Level | Exhibit Hall: Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Hall of the Universe

Moon Rock

The Museum has four Moon rocks, the most on display in the United States except for the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. All four were collected by astronauts during the Apollo lunar missions in the 1970s.

Floor: Lower Level | Exhibit Hall: Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Hall of the Universe

Monitoring earthquakes daily

Earthquakes happen all the time because of the slow but continuous motion of the lithosphere.

Floor: 1st Floor | Exhibit Hall: David S. and Ruth L. Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth

Banded Iron Formation

A nearly 3-billion-year-old banded iron formation from Canada shows that the atmosphere and ocean once had no oxygen.

Floor: 1st Floor | Exhibit Hall: David S. and Ruth L. Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth

Cullman Hall of the Universe

The Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Hall of the Universe, located on the lower level of the Rose Center for Earth and Space, presents the discoveries of modern astrophysics. Divided into four zones, the hall covers the formation, evolution, and properties of stars, planets, galaxies, and the universe.

Food Court

This is the food court.

Hall of Meteorites

The Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites explores essential questions about the origins of our solar system some 4.6 billion years ago by examining meteorites, rocky fragments from space that reveal clues about the formation and evolution of the Sun and planets.

Hall of Planet Earth

The David S. and Ruth L. Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth, the first part of the Rose Center to open in June 1999, displays an amazing collection of geological specimens, chosen specifically to show how our planet works.

Hall of Ocean Life

The Milstein Hall of Ocean Life highlights the drama of the undersea world and its diverse and complex web of life in a fully immersive marine environment. The hall is home to one of the Museum’s most celebrated displays—a 94-foot-long, 21,000-pound model of a blue whale suspended from the ceiling.

Hall of Human Origins

The Anne and Bernard Spitzer Hall of Human Origins pairs fossils with DNA research to present the remarkable history of human evolution. The hall covers millions of years of human history, from early ancestors who lived more than six million years ago to modern Homo sapiens, who evolved 200,000 to 150,000 years ago.

Grand Gallery

The Museum has completed a major renovation of the historic 77th Street lobby that restores the grandeur of its original 1904 design and celebrates the preservation and revitalization of a century-old Museum icon—the 63-foot-long Great Canoe.

Hall of Minerals

The Harry Frank Guggenheim Hall of Minerals presents hundreds of striking mineral-bearing specimens collected from around the world, including a giant topaz crystal from Brazil, a 4.5-ton block of azurite-malachite ore from Arizona, and a nephrite jade slab from Poland.

Diorama of Stissing Mountain in the fall, including trees, bushes and a lake.

Hall of New York State Environment

The Felix M. Warburg Hall of New York State Environment focuses on the village of Pine Plains and Stissing Mountain in New York’s Dutchess County, an area that includes mountains, natural lakes, forests, rock formations, and both wild and cultivated land.

Northwest Coast Hall

The Northwest Coast Hall highlights the traditional cultures of the native peoples of North America’s shores from Washington State to southern Alaska, including the Kwakiutl (known today as Kwakwaka’wakw), Haida, Tlingit, and others.

Hall of North American Forests

The Hall of North American Forests explores the ecology and variety of the forests of North America—from a northern spruce and fir forest of Ontario to a giant cactus forest in Arizona—in addition to highlighting the forest food web and presenting techniques for protecting forests.

Hall of North American Mammals

The Hall of North American Mammals features 28 dramatic examples of the large and medium-sized mammals of the North American continent in carefully re-created habitats.

Hall of Small Mammals

The Hall of Small Mammals, which is an offshoot of the larger Hall of North American Mammals, depicts a variety of animals in small dioramas of their natural habitats, from the Canadian tundra to the brush country of southern Texas.

Hayden Planetarium

At the heart of the Rose Center for Earth and Space is an 87-foot-diameter sphere that appears to float inside a glass cube. Its upper half constitutes the Hayden Planetarium, which opened in 2000 along with the Rose Center for Earth and Space.

Discovery Room

The Discovery Room offers families, and especially children ages 5–12, an interactive gateway to the wonders of the Museum and a hands-on, behind-the-scenes look at its science.

Bernard Family Hall of North American Mammals

Each diorama shows an actual place on the continent, at one moment in time, with the plants and animals you’d see there.

Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall

The Exhibition Department is renovating, reinterpreting, and updating the first-floor Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall exhibitions for reopening in Fall 2012.

Hall of Biodiversity

The Hall of Biodiversity presents a vivid portrait of the beauty and abundance of life on Earth, highlighting both biodiversity and the factors that threaten it. Ecological biodiversity is illustrated by a 2,500-square-foot walk-through diorama that remakes part of the Dzanga-Sangha rain forest, one of Earth’s most diverse ecosystems.

Hall of Gems

The Morgan Memorial Hall of Gems exhibits an array of precious and ornamental stones—uncut, polished, and even a few set in elaborate pieces of jewelry—as well as organic materials such as coral and amber that are prized as gems.

Hayden Big Bang Theater

The lower half of the Hayden Sphere is home to the Hayden Big Bang Theater, where visitors can look down into a concave screen to view the Big Bang presentation, a dynamic flight through the virtual universe based on an accurate cosmic atlas mapped using millions of astronomical observations.

Hall of Mexico and Central America

The Hall of Mexico and Central America features the diverse art, architecture, and traditions of Mesoamerican pre-Columbian cultures through artifacts that span from 1200 BC to the early 1500s.

Hall of Birds of the World

The Hall of Birds of the World showcases distinct environments around the world and the birds unique to those locations. Each of the hall’s 12 dioramas depicts a major biome—a region with a particular community of living things, such as a desert or tropical rainforest—along with representative species.

Hall of South American Peoples

The Hall of South American Peoples features the art, tools, technologies, and traditions of the continent’s pre-Columbian cultures—the ancient Inca, Moche, Chavin, and Chancay—in addition to exhibits about the traditional cultures of modern Amazonia.

Hall of African Peoples

The Hall of African Peoples explores Africa's cultural heritage from ancient Egypt to more modern times. The hall highlights lifestyles and customs—many of them disappearing—of peoples living in four environments: grasslands, deserts, forests, and river regions.

Hall of Asian Peoples

The Gardner D. Stout Hall of Asian Peoples—the Museum’s largest cultural hall—showcases some of the finest collections in Asian ethnology in the Western Hemisphere. Some 3,000 artifacts, which represent about 5 percent of the Museum’s considerable holdings, are displayed in the hall.

Hall of African Mammals

The Akeley Hall of African Mammals showcases large mammals of Africa. At the center is a freestanding group of eight elephants, poised as if to charge, surrounded by 28 habitat dioramas.

Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda

The Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda is New York's official memorial to the 26th President of the United States. In addition to leading expeditions for the Museum, Roosevelt championed environmental conservation.

Hall of Oceanic Birds

This hall's dioramas represent the bird life of the far-flung islands of the Pacific. These islands are geologically diverse, ranging from low coral to high mountains. One of the dioramas represents the bird population of the Guano Islands, named after the birds excretion, or guano, that coats the islands rocks.

Scales of the Universe

Heilbrunn Cosmic Pathway

Hall of Asian Mammals

Between 1922 and 1928, Museum Trustee Arthur S. Vernay and British Colonel John C. Faunthorpe conducted six expeditions to collect animal specimens in India, Burma (now Myanmar), and Siam (now Thailand). The specimens were then donated to the Museum and formed the foundation for the Hall of Asian Mammals, which opened in 1930.

Hall of Pacific Peoples

Anthropologist and longtime Museum curator Margaret Mead provided the foundation for the hall that bears her name through her groundbreaking expeditions to Samoa, New Guinea, and Bali.

Hall of Eastern Woodlands Indians

The Hall of Eastern Woodlands Indians focuses on the traditional cultures of the Native American peoples living in the Eastern Woodlands of North America, including the Iroquois, Mohegan, Ojibwa, and Cree, through the early 20th century.

Hall of Primates

The Hall of Primates explores the mammalian order that includes apes, monkeys, and humans. Primates range in size from the pygmy marmoset to the gorilla, and include species that feed on insects, fruit, leaves, and sap.

Hall of North American Birds

The Leonard C. Sanford Hall of North American Birds features more than 20 dioramas that depict bird species in habitats ranging from the Florida Everglades to Alaskan riverbeds, with forest, prairie, marsh, and desert among the ecosystems represented.

Hall of New York State Mammals

The Hall of New York State Mammals introduces visitors to the diversity of local wildlife. Arranged in cased displays of discrete specimens, the hall presents a range of more than 50 land mammals—from shrews to bats, beavers to bobcats—and invites comparisons of their distinctive external features, such as fur, claws, ears, body shape, and size.

Hall of New York City Birds

The Hall of New York City Birds showcases the rich diversity of birds in the greater New York area. The region attracts more than 400 species of birds because of its varied habitats—which include ponds and lakes, marshes and seashore, open meadows and wooded sections—and due to its location along major bird migratory routes.

Hall of African Mammals

The Akeley Hall of African Mammals showcases large mammals of Africa. At the center is a freestanding group of eight elephants, poised as if to charge, surrounded by 28 habitat dioramas.

Hall of Reptiles and Amphibians

The Hall of Reptiles and Amphibians explores the anatomy, defense, locomotion, distribution, reproduction, and feeding habits of reptiles and amphibians.

Hall of Plains Indians

The Hall of Plains Indians focuses on the life of 19th-century Hidatsa, Dakota (Sioux), Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, and other Native American peoples of the North American Plains.

Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Orientation Center

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Orientation Center introduces visitors to the key concepts presented in the Museum’s fourth floor fossil halls.

Hall of Vertebrate Origins

The Hall of Vertebrate Origins traces the evolution of vertebrates, or animals with backbones, back more than 500 million years.

Saurischian Dinosaurs

One of two halls in the David H. Koch Dinosaur Wing, the Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs features fossils from one of two major groups of dinosaurs. Saurischians are characterized by grasping hands, in which the thumb is offset from the other fingers. This hall features the imposing mounts of Tyrannosaurus rex and Apatosaurus.

Milstein Hall of Advanced Mammals

The Paul and Irma Milstein Hall of Advanced Mammals is one of two halls in the Lila Acheson Wallace Wing of Mammals and Their Extinct Relatives, which together tell of the great diversification and sudden extinctions of this group of animals.

Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs

One of two halls in the David H. Koch Dinosaur Wing, the Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs features fossils from one of two major groups of dinosaurs.

Hall of Primitive Mammals

The Hall of Primitive Mammals, one of two halls in the Lila Acheson Wallace Wing of Mammals and Their Extinct Relatives, traces the lower branches of the evolutionary tree of mammals, including monotremes, marsupials, sloths, and armadillos.

Earth and Space Tour

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Food Court

Hall of Oceanic Birds