Hayden Planetarium

Dominating the Rose Center is the magnificent Hayden Sphere, which features the world's largest virtual reality simulator. Weighing four million pounds and measuring 87 feet in diameter, the Hayden Sphere houses the Space Theater in its upper half and the Big Bang Theater in its lower hemisphere.

With the custom-made Zeiss Mark IX Star Projector and a Digital Dome Projection System, the 429-seat Space Theater displays a hyperrealistic view of the planets, star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies in an exhilarating journey from Earth to the edge of the observable universe. To create this virtual universe, a team of Museum scientists and visualization experts, along with colleagues from such organizations as NASA, worked in a remarkable collaboration of science, artistry, and advanced computing to "stitch together" images of our universe, based on astronomical observations and computer models. The Digital Galaxy Project has created the most accurate and complete picture of our Milky Way Galaxy, a portrait that provides the foundation for the Hayden Planetarium Space Show.

In the Big Bang Theater, visual and audio effects dramatically re-create how, according to scientists, the universe began with a burst of radiant energy from a point smaller than a grain of sand.