Exist Dates
2000 - present
Biographical or Historical Note
- abstract
- Permanent exhibition. Opened February 19, 2000. Located on Floor 2, Section 18. The Rose Center for Earth and Space's Scales
of the Universe at the American Museum of Natural History is displayed along the 400-foot walkway that hugs the glass cube
wall of the Rose Center and surrounds the 87-foot-diameter Hayden Sphere. The exhibition explores the vast scale of the cosmos.
Stations introduce visitors to increments by the power of 10 to relative sizes of atoms, planets, stars, and galaxies using
panels with texts, interactives, rail-mounted models, and models of planets, stars, and galaxies suspended from the ceiling
with the Hayden Sphere serving as a central reference for relative sizes. The exhibit features realistically rendered planets
including a 9-foot diameter model of Jupiter and a model of Saturn with rings 17 feet in diameter (1, 2001, p. 39; 2; 3, 2000,
p. 14).
The Rose Center, via Scales of the Universe exhibit, was central in the debate in both the astrophysics community and the
American public over Pluto's demotion from planet to dwarf planet. The curators chose to group Pluto with the icy bodies in
the Kuiper Belt as opposed to a terrestrial or gas giant planet (4, 2001).
Additional information can be found in the main record for the Rose Center for Earth and Space linked on this record under
Relations.
Sources
(1) American Museum of Natural History. American Museum of Natural History: Official Guide. New York: American Museum of Natural
History, 2001.
(2) American Museum of Natural History. "Scales of the Universe," accessed July 25, 2017, http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent-exhibitions/rose-center-for-earth-and-space/scales-of-the-universe.
(3) American Museum of Natural History. Annual Reports. New York: American Museum of Natural History, 2000.
(4) Chang, Kenneth, "Pluto's Not a Planet? Only in New York" New York Times, January 22, 2001.
Information for the hall appears in the following Museum publications:
American Museum of Natural History Annual Reports for year 2000 (page 9, 13); 2009 (page 51)
American Museum of Natural History Official Guide for year 2001 (page 39)
Futter, Ellen V. The Rose Center for Earth and Space: A Museum for the Twenty-First Century. New York: Harry N. Abrams; New
York: American Museum of Natural History, 2001.
Terms
- place
- New York
AMNH: Floor 2, Section 18.
