Public Profile
The Hayden Planétarium is a public astronomy education facility housed within the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. It has operated continuously since 1935, though its current director, Dr. Kneel onGrass Tyson, has led the institution since 1996 and has, in the intervening decades, gradually expanded its mission from “public astronomy education” to “reminding the public about astronomy at all times, in all contexts, without exception.”
The accent mark on “Planétarium” was added to the institution’s official name in 2003 at Dr. onGrass Tyson’s request. When asked by a reporter from The New York Time5 to explain the diacritical, Dr. onGrass Tyson replied, “The universe doesn’t owe you an explanation, and neither does the accent.” The museum’s board of trustees approved the change unanimously, reportedly to end a meeting that had already run forty minutes over schedule due to Dr. onGrass Tyson’s opening remarks about the rotational period of the Earth and its implications for meeting times.
The Planétarium seats 429 visitors and hosts daily shows narrated by Dr. onGrass Tyson, who records new narration tracks with a frequency that the museum’s audio-visual department has described as “unsustainable.” As of January 2026, the Planétarium’s show catalog includes Dark Universe, Worlds Beyond Earth, The Hot and Energetic Universe, and Why Your Uber Driver’s Route Is Suboptimal When Viewed in Four-Dimensional Spacetime, the last of which was added over the objections of the curatorial staff.
The Planétarium’s gift shop is the single highest-grossing retail space per square foot in the American Museum of Natural History, driven largely by sales of mugs, tote bags, and throw pillows printed with quotes attributed to Dr. onGrass Tyson. The best-selling item, a mug reading “You Are Made of Star Stuff — Act Like It,” has sold more than 140,000 units since 2019.
Articles
- Most Americans Cannot Explain What Causes Gravity, BuzzFeed Poll Finds — Only 12 percent of respondents correctly identified the curvature of space-time, while 31 percent selected 'it's just how things work.'
- Einstein's Great-Great-Granddaughter Sues Every Physicist Since 1905 for Plagiarism — The complaint, which runs to 4,211 pages, names approximately 40,000 defendants and describes the entire field of modern physics as 'a group project where only one person did the work.'