A brand new space show that explores the intricacies of the Milky Way Galaxy is opening to the public at the American Museum of Natural History.
“Encounters in the Milky Way” is a time-traveling journey that shows galactic migration and how that cosmic movement impacts our solar system. The show is narrated by award-winning actor Pedro Pascal and will play in the museum’s Frederick Phineas and Sandra Priest Rose Center for Earth and Space’s Hayden Planetarium.
“This is the 25th anniversary of the Rose Center for Earth and Space, and it makes this space show, which is our seventh space show since the Rose Center opened, particularly special,” said Museum President Sean M. Decatur. “Since 2000, our space shows have transported millions of visitors to the edge of the observable universe with increasingly sophisticated visualizations based on observations from groundbreaking space missions and leading-edge scientific models.”
Curated by Jackie Faherty, senior research scientist in the Museum’s Astrophysics Department and a senior education manager in the Education Division, “Encounters in the Milky Way” is made possible due to discoveries made from the the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, which launched in 2013 and concluded its mission in March 2025. During the mission, dubbed the “billion-star survey”, the Gaia space observatory mapped the precise positions, distances, and motions of nearly 2 billion stars in the Milky Way, allowing scientists to simulate the dynamics of our entire galaxy and reveal the journey of our solar system with the 3-D map.
“Encounters in the Milky Way” shows time-lapse simulations of the movements of celestial objects based on Gaia’s new atlas, taking visitors on an exhilarating voyage into the Milky Way. The show also looks at NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which has been operating since 2022, a million miles away from Earth, and provides researchers with stunning views of galaxies millions of light-years away, but with characteristics similar to those of our own Milky Way.
The show was developed by a team of astronomers, educators, science visualization experts, and artists, and was produced with collaborators from more than 20 academic institutions, including the University of Surrey, NASA’s Space Telescope Science Institute, Southwest Research Institute, the Center for Astrophysics/Harvard & Smithsonian, Technische Universität Berlin, Institute of Science and Technology Austria, and the European Space Agency.
“It’s a once-in-a-generation time in astrophysics as we are mapping our galactic neighborhood and learning the dynamic history and future of our corner of the Milky Way,” said Faherty. “This Space Show highlights recent discoveries that have revolutionized our understanding of the solar system’s journey through the galaxy.”
English subtitles, transcripts, and assistive listening devices are available for Encounters in the Milky Way, and English-language Audio Description will also be available a few weeks after the show premieres, along with audio translations and translated subtitles in the following languages: French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish.
“Encounters in the Milky Way” opens to the public on June 9. For more information, visit amnh.org.
