NYC Arts: The Complete Guide to Art and Culture

This double feature of the museum’s first two Space Shows is part of the 10th anniversary of the Frederick Phineas and Sandra Priest Rose Center for Earth and Space and the 75th anniversary of the original Hayden Planetarium. Passport to the Universe and The Search for Life: Are We Alone?, is screened in the Hayden Planetarium Space Theater on Friday and Saturday evenings.

Tom Hanks narrates the museum's first space show, Passport to the Universe, which launches audiences on a thrilling trip through space and time. See close views of star fields and planets created using the Digital Universe Atlas—the world’s largest map of the observable cosmos—and experience an exhilarating flight into the Orion Nebula, out of our galaxy and deep into intergalactic space. After reaching the edges of the known universe, the tour takes a “virtual shortcut” back to Earth through a black hole.

Harrison Ford, The Search for Life: Are We Alone? explores a question that has always captivated the human imagination: Does life exist beyond Earth? This space show lets audiences travel from the oceans’ depths to recently discovered “exoplanets,” or planets outside of our solar system, through a scientifically accurate simulation of the birth of stars and planets, and to the surface of Mars, which has been re-created from data collected by NASA’s Pathfinder mission. The planet's surface is projected in a stunning 360° panorama on the Hayden Planetarium dome.

• Directions: Subway: B, C to 81st Street