Heilbrun Cosmic Pathway

The Heilbrunn Cosmic Pathway is an interactive exhibit located inside the Rose Center for Earth and Space located at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Once visitors exit the interior of the Hayden Planetarium exhibit, they stand at the beginning of the Cosmic Pathway, a timetable spanning the length of the ramp, that spirals down around the Hayden sphere. The ramp is convert|360|ft|m long, comprising 13 billion years of cosmic history, and that an average human stride covers 75 million years. [cite web | title=Heilbrunn Cosmic Pathway | publisher=American Museum of Natural History | url=http://www.amnh.org/rose/cosmicpathway.html | accessdate=2006-08-22] This works out to 36,111,111 years per foot.

The pathway

Along the pathway are thirteen markers denoting the passage of each billion years. At eight landings, panels show visitors the relative size of the universe at that point in time, along with major developmental stages of the universe including the first generation of stars, globular clusters, quasars, elliptical galaxies, galactic bulges, radio galaxies, the Milky Way Galaxy, galactic disks, and later generations of stars. At each of the landings, computer interactives provide overviews of the entire pathway, and more in-depth information, as well as connections to exhibit topics in the Hall of the Universe.

Walking down the pathway, visitors pass by a photographic record of cosmic history. Astronomical images appear at that time of the universe corresponding to that place on the pathway. The light from these objects has taken billions of years to reach us, and we see them not as they are now, but as they were when their light began its journey toward us. Among these are some of the most distant celestial objects known to scientists, along with their cosmic "redshift," the measurement that indicates what epoch of the expanding universe is being shown. Panels along the beginning of the Pathway are intentionally left blank in order allow space to document future discoveries of new "record holders" that are even more distant than the ones we know now.

Artifacts along the Heilbrunn Cosmic Pathway include presolar grains, a meteorite that dates from the birth of our solar system, a sample from the oldest rock formation on Earth, a stromatolite as an example of multicellular life formation, a trilobite, the first animal with eyes; and the fossilized serrated tooth of a giant carnivorous dinosaur. The Cosmic Pathway concludes with the Age of Dinosaurs, which became extinct 65 million years ago — less than two feet from the end of the Pathway, and the duration of recorded human history, portrayed as the thickness of an human hair." [cite web | title=Heilbrunn Cosmic Pathway - More Info | publisher=American Museum of Natural History | url=http://www.amnh.org/rose/cosmic-moreinfo.html | accessdate=2006-08-22]

References

* [http://www.amnh.org/rose/?src=h_p "The Frederick Phineas and Sandra Priest Rose Center For Earth and Space. "] . Retrieved Aug. 22, 2006.
* [http://www.amnh.org/rose/cosmicpathway.html "The Harriet and Robert Heilbrunn Cosmic Pathway . "] . Retrieved Aug. 22, 2006.

External links

* [http://www.amnh.org/rose/cosmicpathway.html Heilbrunn Cosmic Pathway]