Rose Center for Earth and Space

Oddly this is part of AMNH that houses Hayden Planetarium, which also has a standalone listing, so peep that instead.

I don’t understand this place at all. Let’s start with pricing. You can pay $ 1 to get in (which you should — that’s what it’s worth and it’s a suggested admission), but the 30 minute Neil advertisement/​movie is $ 25 for an adult?
Throw in massive crowds, a confusing layout and confusing ticket pricing and this place should be avoided.
I did not think the exhibits were impressive at all and if you look close, there is rat poop all over the place.
I also had a horrible experience with the woman in the museum store by the main entrance. I left all the things on the counter and walked out she was so mean.

Excellent place.
1) It is interesting to both children and adults.
2) Excellent artifacts.
3) Wonderful design.

FYI, the show is updated with Liam Neeson narrating now! The exhibits below haven’t changed too much, but there are also periodic assistants helping out with hands-​on exhibits, too, and a room talking about black holes.

I’d skip this. The theater where you learn about the big band is out of place, the displays are super confusing, and all that I could figure out was the gift shop. The displays of the earthquakes were good, but the rest was meh. At least the admission is included with the Natural History Museum ticket, so check it out and decide for yourself.

This is a great place in which to nerd out. One thing has a touch of real brilliance — the scales embedded in the floor that show your weight on different celestial bodies (the moon, Jupiter, etc.); these are magnets for visitors.
The whole place is extremely well done — they deliver a ton of information in an entertaining way.
And I found Pluto!

This place always makes me wonder whether I should drop my career and become an astronomer.
On a side note, however, the prices for those half hour shows are $ 25, kind of steep, like a 200% for a blockbuster movie.

Been coming here for years. It’s pretty educational and fun. I use to come here on my own for years. I had lots of fun jumping on the scales. I enjoyed reading the information around. I’ve taken my relatives when they come here from out of town. They’ve all enjoyed the place. It’s definitely a good place for children.

If it wasn’t for the planeterium this place would be over rated. Make sure you buy the ticket to teh planetarium.

The first thing that grabs your attention about the Rose Center for Earth and Space is the actual building itself. It is enclosed in a 95 foot tall, all glass cube. Stepping inside, it seems like you’ve entered onto the set of a futuristic movie. It makes for a great atmosphere for viewing things about space. Hanging along the outer edges of the Rose Center, are large models of different planets and molecules.
In the center of the Center, is the 87 foot Hayden Sphere. The sphere houses the Hayden Planetarium. We didn’t have time to see the show «Journey to the Stars» in the planetarium. Will just have to wait until next time, and hopefully the show price has not climbed past its current $ 20 price tag.
The Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites is self explanatory, except that (along with meteorites) there are digital scales that show what your weight would be on celestial bodies around the universe. So I stepped on a scale, and it says my weight would be 25.4 pounds on the Moon. I turn to my friend and ask «So, what’s my weight on Earth?» I was shocked (well, not really) that she knew the exact answer!
My favorite section of the Rose Center was the Scales of the Universe. This uses powers of ten, the Hayden Sphere, and other models to show the scale of different things in the Universe. This makes for some crazy visual comparisons, like a tiny dot (a proton) compared to the Hayden Sphere (an atom). Or the Hayden Sphere (our Sun) compared to a small 9 inch sphere which represented the Earth.
There are other exhibits like the Hall of the Universe, Hall of the Earth, Cosmic Pathway, and an exhibit about the Big Bang. Didn’t have much time to explore those fully, so there are definitely enough things left to warrant a second visit.

3.5 stars…
The Rose Space center is mostly houses the Hayden Planetarium but also has a few exhibition halls with some great artifacts and tons of information on everything space related. The Planetarium was built in 1935, demolished in 1997, and rebuilt and opened with the new Rose Center in 2000. The main entrance is on the north side of the Natural History Museum on 81^st st. Most of the educational/​interactive exhibits around the planetarium (especially on the main level) have seen much better days, a lot of them are in need of repair. The planetarium show is about 30min and runs about $ 24 which is pretty steep but it’s a great experience. The shows are always narrated by A list celebrities and change every so often so your interest will be held as long as you wait for a new show to come out, otherwise there’s plenty of information here to keep coming back to learn something new.

The step-​child of the Museum of Natural History (you can go back and forth between the 2 with the same admission).
Lots of fun interactive exhibits for the kids to luv as well as information for adults to take in which they might not have known or remembered.
Don’t forget to also check out some of the events held here which are both music and cocktail oriented.

I love this place. I try to go at least once or twice a year to see the newest video in the planetarium. I would give it a 5, but sometimes the place gets dirty from kids touching EVERYTHING… and when I say everything… people I mean EVERYTHING. (Which there is nothing particularly wrong with that considering they are children…)
It’s just that the parents of the children don’t wipe off whatever the kids touch. Kids pick their noses, spit on stuff, etc… I’m sorry I come off as a but come on… a kid sneezed on an exhibit and the parents germaphobe just walked away from the exhibit and then someone TOUCHED the snot by accident.
THAT IS HOW PEOPLE GET SICK!
Bring plenty of PURELL and enjoy the show.

This is it! Jazz under the Stars, the planitarium, no better way to
spend a day. Takes your mind to another dimenson, then you get to have fancy snacks and smooth jazz. Parking is hectic, so take the train. I even bought my first telescope to watch the night sky.

(review is for sonic vision at the museum, not just the museum.)
we finally made it in for the «sonic vision» show. if you like electronic music from 2003, and computer graphics from 2000, this was pretty amazing.
actually it wasn’t bad — but it all felt a little dated. the music mix was all over the place and to me none of the mixes were really ever «on beat» and it drove me crazy. train wrecks from moby! go!
the graphics were pretty cool, trippy spaced out visuals that were at times corny, but overall i can say were worth seeing. next is the e?
the building was pretty amazing, with the large orb in the middle of this massive structure. the planetarium inside was nice, clean, cool. but the seats were not very comfortable for me.
the crowd ranged in age from 8 to 50 years old. i think the kids dug it the most. the «enhanced» college kids were mesmerized. we are all made of stars?

The place is looking a little run down these days, a number of the interactive exhibits were out of order, but there were enough left to make for an interesting visit. We saw the «Journey to the Stars» Space Show in the planetarium. It was OK but the visuals did not blow me away. Can’t recommend the show.

My review is for Sonic Vision, the Moby designed light and music show that takes over the planetarium on an ongoing basis. Definitely an activity of choice for those enjoying certain sweet green recreational activities or a few too many before the show. A great time for the stoner in your life, and the stoner deep within you that hasn’t seen the light of day since college.
You’re welcome.

I wasn’t impressed. While the rest of the Museum of Natural history felt very friendly, open, and accessible, the Rose Center seemed to be all about extracting extra money from the patrons. Pay extra to walk up a ramp… Why? No explanation. Pay extra for a film… Why?
The museum is EPIC and you could spend a whole day there without even realizing the Rose Center existed if you desired, so why pay extra for it? Admittedly the exhibits were nice, but those were the free parts and I refuse to pay extra for something on a «maybe it’ll be cool» premise.

Space… the Final Frontier.
These are the voyages of the Starship, Enterprise.
Its 5-​year mission…
To explore strange new worlds.
To seek out new life and new civilizations.
To boldly go where no man has gone before!
Awwww-​aw-​awwww-​awww-​awww-​aw!
OK, enough with the Star Trek theme… I think the Rose Center is very cool for young and old alike, and I’ve been about three times since it opened in 2000. That’s probably enough for an old curmudgeon like me who remembers staying up for those all-​night TV broadcasts of the Gemini and Apollo missions.
It’s a great set-​up that begins with the Big Bang Theater, where you’re led into a dark room and a circular screen on the floor where Maya Angelou’s voiceover explains how the universe was first formed. It used to be Jodie Foster’s voice right after she did «Contact», but I guess even in space, contracts expire.
Then you walk down the spiral walkway known as the Heilbrun Cosmic Pathway, an image-​oriented timeline of the universe’s history from the Big Bang to the present day. Lots of cool pictures taken from the Hubble to peruse, though watch out for impatient kids attempting to age you faster than you want.
Most people pay the extra $ 14 for the ½-​hour film in the Hayden Planetarium. They make a big ta-​dah out of it by making you go up an elevator into a darkened waiting room and then into the rocketship-​type seats in the planetarium. I remember the Tom Hanks-​narrated one very well as it tracked a voyage from Earth to the outer reaches of the universe. I missed the Harrison Ford-​narrated film which discussed extraterrestrials.
However, I did just see the Robert Redford-​narrated one where he shows how cosmic collisions formed the moon and the Milky Way. I just kept thinking how old and grizzly Bob is starting to sound. There is one shocking moment when a meteor hits Earth… like a gazillion years ago. Pretty soon, they’ll run out of male menopausal American movie stars to narrate what’s left to describe of the universe. I assume Barbra Streisand will be next singing «Somewhere» to an enraptured audience of Martians.
My one complaint about the Rose Center is the poor coordination with the adjoining Museum of Natural History, in particular, how little direction you are given to buy the combination ticket that would save you money on the ticket for the planetarium show. We had to go back and ask for a refund in order to get the significant discount. What a pain.
Oh well, there’s a great gift shop… always the sign of a great museum, including my favorite item, a kit to show how farts happen. Gee, I think I have the perfect white elephant exchange gift for the office.

We didn’t get to see much of this center, but we watched the Space show in the sphere. It was narrated by Robert Redford and had to do with collisions. It pretty much explained the origins of the universe and predicted our galactic future.
My only advice, when you enter the doors, go to the seats directly in front of you and do not deviate to the side. Most of the film’s action, etc., centered near the doors. We sat by the doors and couldn’t see everything, because it was all going on behind us. The chairs didn’t recline and we couldn’t get our heads to tilt back that far.