What do rocks, coral, and trees have in common? Find out with Museum Education Experience Program (MEEP) interns Claire and Fred.
The Museum is looking for fall interns! Applications are open through August 23. Apply now!
There are 366 days in 2024! How will you spend your extra day this Leap Year?
There are three kinds of rock: igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. Sedimentary rocks are layered. Some form when particles of rocks and minerals settle out of water or air. Others form when minerals precipitate directly out of water. Sedimentary rocks are identified by their minerals and texture. As the sediments pile up, water is driven out by the weight of the overlying pile, and minerals precipitate around the sediment particles, cementing them into rock. This process is called lithification.
Displayed along the 400-foot-long walkway that hugs the glass curtain wall on the second level of the Rose Center for Earth and Space, the Scales of the Universe vividly illustrates the vast range of sizes in the universe, from subatomic particles and objects on the human scale to the largest objects in the observable cosmos. The exhibit features realistically rendered planets, including a 9-foot-diameter model of Jupiter and Saturn with rings 17 feet in diameter, that hang from the ceiling.
The 87-foot diameter Hayden Sphere at the center of the Rose Center serves as a central reference for illustrating the relative sizes of galaxies, stars, planets, cells, and atoms, with text panels and models that invite visitors to make different sets of comparisons. For example, if the sphere represents the Milky Way galaxy, a typical star cluster within it is the size of a baseball. If the sphere is taken to be the Sun, Earth would be the size of a grapefruit.
"The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased; and not impaired in value." - Theodore Roosevelt
Happy Earth Day from the American Museum of Natural History! Learn more about President Theodore Roosevelt.
Happy Earth Day!
We're celebrating with a peek into the archives: "Mr. Marguglio working on South Pole section of globe, American Museum of Natural History" photographed in 1933.
Today, matching belts of sedimentary rock, known as the Old Red Sandstone, are found in Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, and eastern North America. This puzzling distribution of similar rocks can be explained by plate tectonics. Sediments that originally formed 400 million years ago on a vast supercontinent were later separated when the landmass broke apart into the continents we see today.
The sediments that formed both of the Old Red Sandstones were laid down in the same basin during the Devonian Period, about 400 million years ago. Although both samples were deposited around the same time, their surrounding environments were slightly different. Small differences in grain size and in the composition of the materials that cements the grains together account for the coloration and texture of these two rocks.
Banded Iron
This giant slab of sedimentary rock from Ontario, Canada, records a time from the Earth's distant past when evolving life profoundly influenced the planet's evolution. It offers evidence that even some of the world's largest landmasses were at one time covered by water. This nearly 3-billion-year-old banded iron formation shows that the atmosphere and ocean once had no oxygen. The oxygen that is now in the Earth's atmosphere was not there at the beginning. Early life began to generate oxygen by converting the Sun's energy into food. Photosynthetic organisms were making oxygen, but that oxygen reacted with the iron dissolved in seawater to form iron oxide minerals on the ocean floor, creating banded iron formations.
This boulder, with its layers of red jasper and iron magnetite, was formed billions of years ago as part of that process. Its presence in the Hall of Planet Earth is a reminder that life made our atmosphere breathable. The dark layers in the rock are mainly composed of magnetite (Fe30), while the red layers are chalcedony, a form of silica (SiO) that is colored red by tiny iron oxide particles. Some geologists suggest that the layers formed annually with the changing seasons.
Although massive asteroid impacts on Earth are rare, astronomers have identified thousands of asteroids close enough to Earth to be potentially hazardous. Learn from meteorite specialist Denton Ebel, Curator in the Division of Physical Sciences, how scientists have proposed to deflect an asteroid that’s on a collision course with Earth:
Yesterday, NASA released this new view of the entire sunlit side of Earth from one million miles away. This color image of Earth was taken by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) on on NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite.
At the request of the whitehouse, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium, offered reflections on this new image of our home.
Earth. Not mounted on a stand, with color-coded state and national boundaries, as schoolroom globes are prone to display. Instead, we see our world as only a cosmic perspective can provide: Blue Oceans -- Dry Land -- White Clouds -- Polar Ice. A Sun-lit planet, teeming with life, framed in darkness. In 1972, when NASA’s Apollo 17 astronauts first captured an entire hemisphere of our planet, we were treated to such a view. The Blue Marble, it was called. The Space Program’s unprecedented images of Earth compelled us all to think deeply about our dependence on nature and the fate of our civilization. Of course, at the time, we had other distractions. Between 1968 and 1972, the United States would experience some of its most turbulent years in memory, simultaneously enduring a hot war in Southeast Asia, a Cold War with the Soviet Union, the Civil Rights Movement, campus unrest, and assassinations. Yet that’s precisely when we voyaged to the Moon, paused, looked back, and discovered Earth for the first time. The year 1970 would celebrate the first Earth Day. In that same year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were formed with strong bipartisan support. In 1972, the pesticide DDT was banned and the Clean Water Act was passed. And one year later, the Endangered Species Act would be enacted, the catalytic converter would be introduced, and unleaded automotive emission standards would be set. A stunning admission that we’re all in this together, with a common future on a shared planet. Regrettably, we still live in a turbulent world. But we now have at our disposal, not simply a photograph of our home to reflect upon, but continual data of our rotating planet, captured 13 times per day, by the robotic Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), a specially designed space camera & telescope, launched and positioned a million miles from Earth. We will now be able to measure and track Sun-induced space weather as well as global climactic trends in ozone levels, aerosols, vegetation, volcanic ash, and Earth reflectivity, all in high resolution; just the kind of data our civilization needs to make informed cultural, political, and scientific decisions that affect our future. Occasions such as this offer renewed confidence that we may ultimately become responsible shepherds of our own fate, and the fate of that fragile home we call Earth. Neil deGrasse Tyson American Museum of Natural History, New York City
This post was originally published on Dr. Tyson’s Facebook Page.
Today at 3:41 pm EDT, Monday July 6, Earth is at its furthest distance from the Sun for this year, aphelion—94,506,507.39 miles, center to center. That’s about 1.7% further than our average solar distance.
Happy Earth Day! Pictured are some of the beautiful flowers popping up all around the Museum.
Earth Day Activities for Kids
Today is Earth Day! Celebrate by inspiring the next generation to take an interest in the world around them with these activities from Ology, the Museum’s website for kids:
Birds are an important part of every ecosystem. Using a milk carton and scissors, create your own bird feeder and discover the diversity of your local bird population by watching as they eat. Pay close attention to the different sizes, shapes, feather colors, beaks, and habits of your feathered visitors, and become a local bird expert!
Every rock has a story to tell. Rocks hold evidence that helps us figure out how mountains formed, where glaciers once flowed over the United States, or what kinds of plants and animals lived on the Earth. Rocks show us how the Earth has changed and how it’s still changing, even today! They give us important clues about the Earth’s history. Start your own rock collection and begin learning about rocks just by looking at them.
Take a look out your window. What do you see? Is it sunny or cloudy? Clear or rainy? Windy or calm? Weather happens in the atmosphere, or the air around us. The conditions in the atmosphere are always changing: it can be hot or cold, wet or dry, moving or still. Make your own weather station to gather data about your local weather.
Scientists learn about animals by observing them and from analyzing their DNA. Starting your own field journal is the first step towards understanding the wildlife in your area. Learn how to start your own field journal.
NEW RESEARCH: Work on an ancient meteorite in the Museum’s scientific collection has provided the first physical evidence that strong magnetic fields whipped the early solar system into shape.
Infant planetary systems begin life as swirling disks of gas and dust. Over the course of a few million years, most of this material gets sucked into the center of the disk to build a star, while the remaining dust accumulates into larger and larger chunks—the building blocks for terrestrial planets.
Astronomers have observed this protoplanetary disk evolution throughout our galaxy—a process that our own solar system underwent early in its history. However, the mechanism by which planetary disks and their central stars evolve at such a rapid rate has eluded scientists for decades.
Now, in a paper published in the journal Science, a team of researchers led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) scientists have provided the first experimental evidence that our solar system's protoplanetary disk was shaped by an intense magnetic field that drove a massive amount of gas into the Sun within just a few million years. The same magnetic field may have propelled dust grains along collision courses, eventually smashing them together to form the initial seeds of terrestrial planets.
The American Museum of Natural History is proud to offer a free, online course about the science of climate change—and how to talk about it. Running from October 20—December 14, participants will hear from scientists in the fields of climatology, oceanography, Earth science, and anthropology.
Study how climate change is affecting people and their ways of life, and become fluent in the science of climate change. Explore the multiple lines of evidence that human-induced climate change is happening today and consider what that means for the future of our planet. By the end of this course, through understanding key scientific principles, you will be able to confront misconceptions and contribute confidently to conversations about climate change.
The weekend is almost here and it's going to be out of this world!
This weekend at the Museum, Explore our Dark Universe, go deep inside the Earth’s crust, and learn about the evolution of our sense of smell.
Here are some highlights from the past week:
- We've been celebrating National Moth Week!
- Check out this 20 million year old spider trapped in amber.
- The Maximilian collection was an important early acquisition for the Museum.
- Museum Curator John Sparks was trained in the Exosuit.
- We learned some big cat facts.
Have a great weekend!