Life with Lucy!

• Sunday, December 7
• 2:00 p.m.
• Kaufmann Theater, first floor
• $8 children, $10 adults
• Recommended for families with children ages 4 and up.
• Code: RC120708

What would it be like to live, work, and play with Lucy, a three-million-year-old human ancestor? Come join Dr. Nebula’s apprentice, Scooter, as she explores the mystery, myth, and science of our earliest ancestors.

Obediah Wright, the artistic director of the Balance Dance Theatre

Hubert Williams

Kwanzaa Fest 2008!

• Sunday, December 28
• 12-5 pm
• Milstein Hall of Ocean Life, first floor
• Free with Museum admission
• This event is co-produced with Community Works and the NewHeritage Theatre Group under the artistic direction of James Stovall.

Join us for Kwanzaa Fest 2008!, a celebration of the seven principles of Kwanzaa for the entire family. This all-day presentation will feature a rich array of intergenerational performers, including the famed Allen Liturgical Dance Ministry; the oldest African dance school in the United States, LaRocque Bey School of Dance Theatre; multi-award winner Vy Higginsen’s Gospel for Teens Choir; the vibrant and rhythmic vocals of the New York African Chorus Ensemble; and the electrifying Balance Dance Theatre under the artistic direction of Obediah Wright. In addition to the performances, enjoy the Kwanzaa marketplace and taste the special foods sold at the Museum Food Court.

Click here to download a program flyer (PDF format).

Signed Tours - The Phenomenon of Global Warming

• Saturday, December 13
• 1:30 p.m.
• Meet in Roosevelt Rotunda, 2nd Floor
• Free with Museum admission

Professor Gabriel Grayson, sign language interpreter and Chair of the Sign Language Department at the New School for General Studies, and a Museum Tour Guide lead tours of permanent and special exhibitions for both deaf and hearing audiences with simultaneous signed and spoken tours. Tour through our newest temporary exhibit, Climate Change: The Threat to Life and a New Energy Future, and explore the science, history, and impact of climate change on a global scale.

Why Return to the Moon?

• Monday, December 8
• 7:30 p.m.
• Hayden Planetarium Space Theater
• $15 ($13.50 Members, students, senior citizens)
• Advance registration encouraged
• Code: HL120808

With Professor Maria T. Zuber, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, MIT. After the Apollo program, many Americans felt as if they’d “been there, done that.” So why is nearly every space-faring nation on Earth now actively involved in returning to the Moon? The Moon is the most accessible planetary body, and its ancient surface represents a treasure trove of information regarding the early evolution of terrestrial planets. Lunar poles with regions of near-permanent darkness may be loci of water ice that, if confirmed, would facilitate an extended human presence. And with its proximity to Earth, the Moon provides a potential test bed for a future mission to Mars. This presentation will highlight ongoing exploration plans and discuss why a lunar invasion, of sorts, is taking place.

Crossing the Lines

• Tuesday, December 30
• 6:30 p.m.
• Hayden Planetarium Space Theater
• $15 ($13.50 Members, students, senior citizens)
• Advanced registration is encouraged. These programs are supported, in part, by Val and Min-Myn Schaffner.
• Code: HM123008

Explore how positional astronomy has helped create and measure our visions of the universe.

© Rosamond Purcell

Art/Sci Collision: Egg & Nest

• Thursday, December 11
• 6:30 p.m.
• Linder Theater, first floor
• $15 ($13.50 Members, students, senior citizens)
• This program is supported, in part, by Kay Allaire and Ruth A. Unterberg.
• Code: EL121108

Photographer Rosamond Purcell unveils the ornithological wonders found within the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology, Camarillo, California. Viewed through her lens, the dusky blue egg of an emu becomes a planet, and the intricate shreds of grass and newspaper within a blackbird nest seem a modernist collage. A book signing follows.

Sea Monsters  

Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure, a stunning large-format film, opened on Saturday, May 24, 2008. Narrated by Tony Award-winning actor Liev Schreiber, the 40-minute film explores the largely unknown world of the "other" dinosaurs, reptiles that lived beneath the water 80 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period, when places such as Kansas were at the bottom of a great inland sea that divided North America in two. During this period of warmer climate much of the world was submerged and cold-blooded seagoing reptiles flourished. When these giant creatures died and the seas receded, their fossils were found on what is now dry land.

Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure follows an animated family of Dolichorhynchops (a sea creature approximately the size of a dolphin with a long snout), informally known as "Dollies," as they travel these ancient waters. During their journey the Dollies encounter many other astonishing sea creatures including Platecarpus, a lizard-like reptile that swallows its prey whole like snakes; Styxosaurus, with a 20-foot-long neck and paddle-like fins as large as an adult human; and the gigantic, top-of-the-food-chain Tylosaurus.

The film also visits paleontological digs around the world and shows how and what scientists know about these creatures. For example, shark teeth found throughout the central United States prove that sharks thrived during the Age of the Dinosaurs, while the shapes of their jaws and teeth provide clues about their diets. Occasionally paleontologists are lucky enough to discover bones of one species inside the remains of the other, such as a fossilized Xiphactinus, a 17-foot-long predatory fish found with an entire 6-foot fish inside, swallowed whole.

Funded in part by the National Science Foundation, Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure was produced by National Geographic Cinema Ventures.

Screenings of Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure are held daily in the LeFrak Theater every hour on the half hour from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Space Shows in the Hayden Planetarium

An illustration of the solar wind interacting with Earth's magnetic field.

© American Museum of Natural History/NASA

Cosmic Collisions  

• 10:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. every half hour, except Wednesdays
• Wednesday shows begin at 11:00 a.m.
• Visit the Cosmic Collisions Web site for more information and to view the trailer.

A spectacular immersive theater experience, Cosmic Collisions launches visitors on a thrilling trip through space and time—well beyond the calm face of the night sky—to explore cosmic collisions, hypersonic impacts that drive the dynamic and continuing evolution of the universe. Groundbreaking scientific simulations and visualizations based on cutting-edge research developed by Museum astrophysicists, scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and other international colleagues—many seen for the first time—depict the dramatic and explosive encounters that shaped our solar system, changed the course of life on Earth, and continue to transform our galaxy. The new show explores the full range of space collisions, past, present, and future.

Cosmic Collisions is narrated by award-winning actor, director, and producer Robert Redford.

The Zeiss mark IX star projector inside the Hayden Planetarium.

© D. Finnin/AMNH

New! Field Trip to the Moon  

• Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m.
• Hayden Planetarium Space Theater

On this trip to the Moon in the immersive Hayden Planetarium, you'll feel the ground shake as your rocket launches, see a sunrise in space, and orbit and land on the Moon. Guided by a live presenter, you'll admire the view from where humans last walked on the Moon, and see what awaits us on future missions.

For more information click here.

How Do You See Your Music?

Heaven: Temple of Eyes "Honestly"
This soaring image was created by artist Alex Grey to accompany Zwan's "Honestly" and adapted from his painting Collective Vision.

© D. Finnin/AMNH

SonicVision  

• SonicVision is Presented every Friday and Saturday evening, at 7:30 and 8:30 p.m.

The American Museum of Natural History, in collaboration with MTV2, presents SonicVision, a groundbreaking digitally animated alternative music show.

SonicVision takes audiences in the Hayden Planetarium Space Theater on a mind-warping musical roller-coaster ride through fantastical dreamspace. With a mix by Moby and featuring tracks from Radiohead, U2, David Bowie, Coldplay, Queens of the Stone Age, Prodigy, The Flaming Lips, Fischerspooner, Spiritualized, Audioslave, Stereolab, Boards of Canada, David Byrne and Brian Eno, Goldfrapp, Zwan, White Zombie, and Moby, the music ignites this one-of-a-kind computer-generated musical and visual experience, which uses next-generation digital technology to illuminate the Planetarium's dome with a dazzling morphing of colorful visions. SonicVision is presented every Friday and Saturday evening at 7:30 and 8:30 p.m., in the Hayden Planetarium at the Museum's Rose Center for Earth and Space.