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Design

Back to front: the Hayden Sphere, the Heilbrun Cosmic Pathway, and the Scales of the Universe exhibit

Close-up of the Scales of the Universe exhibit

Hayden Sphere at night

The Hayden Sphere with the winding Cosmic Pathway helix

Designed by Polshek and Todd Schliemann, the building consists of a six-story high glass cube enclosing the 87-foot (27 m) illuminated Hayden Sphere, which appears to float, although it is actually supported by truss work. Polshek has referred to this work as a "cosmic cathedral."

The Rose Center and its adjacent plaza are both located on the north face of the Museum; the Center encloses 333,500 square feet (30,980 m²) of research, education, and exhibition spaces in addition to the Hayden Planetarium. Also located in the facility is the Department of Astrophysics, the newest academic research department in the Museum. Further, Polshek designed the 1,800-square-foot (170 m²) Weston Pavilion, a 43-foot (13 m) high transparent structure of "water white" glass along the Museum's west facade. This structure, a small companion piece to the Rose Center, offers a new entry way to the Museum as well as opening further exhibition space for astronomically-related objects. The planetarium's former magazine, The Sky, merged with "The Telescope" to become the leading astronomy magazine. Sky & Telescope.

The exhibits highlight human connection to the cosmos along with the scale and properties of the observable universe itself. When the new Rose Center opened with a model of only eight planets, excluding what was then called planet Pluto, it resulted in a headline-making controversy.

Hayden Planetarium

For the Charles Hayden Planetarium in Boston, see Museum of Science, Boston.

The Hayden Planetarium (often called "The Hayden Sphere" or "The Great Sphere") has, since 2000, been one of the two main attractions within the Rose Center. 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 Zeiss Star Projector system replicating an accurate night sky as seen from Earth. The Star Theater is one of the world's pre-eminent planetariums, which incorporates high-resolution fulldome video to create "space shows," based in scientific visualization of current astrophysical data. The shows run every half hour from 10:30 to 4:30 except on the first Friday of the month; on that Friday the shows run from 10:30 to 7:30. Right outside the doors of the theater there is a flat-screen TV presentation that gives you a preview of what to expect once the show starts.

The bottom half of the Sphere is home to the Big Bang Theater, which depicts the birth of the universe in a four-minute program. The Big Bang Theater occupies the bottom half of the Hayden Sphere. Utilizing a screen that measures 36 feet in diameter over an 8-foot-deep (2.4 m) bowl, a four-minute program depicts the birth of the universe, with a voiceover by Liam Neeson. The Big Bang Theater serves as an introduction to the Heilbrun Cosmic Pathway, a spiral which wraps around the sphere, connecting the second and first floors of the Rose Center. The cosmic pathway provides a timeline of the universe's history from the Big Bang to the present day. The Heilbrun Cosmic Pathway is one of the most popular exhibits in the Rose Center, which opened February 19, 2000.

The Hayden Planetarium offers a number of courses and public presentations including the Frontiers of Astrophysics and Distinguished Authors lecture series.

Heilbrunn Cosmic Pathway

As visitors leave the Planetarium theater, they exit to the Size Scales of the Universe exhibit which shows the vast array of sizes in the universe; the walkway itself is a timeline of the Universe from the Big Bang to the present. This exhibit leads to the Big Bang Theater and exits to the Heilbrun Cosmic Pathway, an interactive exhibit designed by the AMNH Exhibitions Lab at the Rose Center, which shows the history of the universe. From the bottom of the Cosmic Pathway, visitors can stop by the Hall of Planet Earth to explore geology, weather, plate tectonics and more, or go down to the Hall of the Universe to explore the realms of planets, stars, galaxies and more. The 360-foot-long (110 m) ramp illustrates 13 billion years of cosmic history at a rate of about 36,111,111 years per foot; a typical adult walking step length of approximately 28 inches (71 cm) covers about 84 million years.

Along the pathway are thirteen markers denoting the passage of each billion years. At eight landings, panels show visitors the relative size of the universe at that point in time, along with major developmental stages of the universe including the first generation of stars, globular clusters, quasars, elliptical galaxies, galactic bulges, radio galaxies, the Milky Way Galaxy, galactic disks, and later generations of stars. At each of the landings, computer interactives provide overviews of the entire pathway, and more in-depth information, as well as connections to exhibit topics in the Hall of the Universe.

Walking down the pathway, visitors also pass by a photographic record of cosmic history. Astronomical images appear at that time of the universe corresponding to that place on the pathway. The light from these objects has taken billions of years to reach the earth, and visitors see them not as they are now, but as they were when their light began its journey toward Earth. Among these are some of the most distant celestial objects known to scientists, along with their cosmic "redshift," the measurement that indicates what epoch of the expanding universe is being shown. Panels along the beginning of the Pathway are intentionally left blank in order allow space to document future discoveries of new "record holders" that are even more distant than the ones currently known.

Artifacts along the Heilbrunn Cosmic Pathway include presolar grains, a meteorite that dates from the birth of our solar system, a sample from the oldest rock formation on Earth, a stromatolite as an example of multicellular life formation, a trilobite, the first animal with eyes; and the fossilized serrated tooth of a giant carnivorous dinosaur. The Cosmic Pathway concludes with the Age of Dinosaurs, which became extinct 66 million years ago, less than two feet from the end of the Pathway; and the duration of recorded human history, portrayed as the thickness of a human hair.

Arthur Ross Terrace American Museum of Natural History

The Ross Terrace adjacent to the Rose Center for Earth and Space, and built over the new parking garage on 81st Street. This rooftop plaza is designed to be a stage set that celebrates both astronomy and Earth’s natural history, as well as an outdoor gathering place for museum visitors. Renowned garden designer, Kathryn Gustafson formed the concept for the Terrace after seeing an illustration of shadows cast by a lunar eclipse. 47,114 Square feet terrace was designed by Charles Morris Anderson as a Landscape Architect, and his design was awarded the American Society of Landscape Architecture (ASLA) Design award in 2003.