New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science
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The New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science is a natural history and science museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico near Old Town Albuquerque. The Museum was founded in 1986.
The Museum's permanent exhibit halls illustrate a "journey through time", covering the birth of the Universe
(≈13.6 billion years ago) to the Ice Age (≈10,000 years ago). The eight journey through time halls are as follows: Origins, Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Jurassic Super Giants, New Mexico's Seacoast, Age of Volcanoes, Evolving Grasslands, Cave Experience, and New Mexico's Ice Age. "Jurassic Super Giants" features the complete skeletons of Seismosaurus, Saurophaganax, Stegosaurus, and one leg of a Brachiosaurus. In the museum's atrium is the skeleton of Stan, a Tyrannosaurus rex measuring forty feet (≈12.2 meters) in length and twelve feet (≈3.7 meters) in height, the second largest T. rex ever found.
Bronze statues of two dinosaurs, a Pentaceratops named "Spike" and a Albertosaurus named "Alberta", stand at the entrance. Many dinosaur fossils have been found in New Mexico, and a few of the ones on display in the museum are only known from New Mexico.
Other permanent exhibits include a planetarium and two floors of exhibit galleries dedicated to astronomy and space exploration. STARTUP: Albuquerque and the Personal Computer Revolution, another permanent exhibit, is dedicated to the history of the personal computer, and was based on a concept by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen, who along with Bill Gates started Microsoft in Albuquerque. In May 2007, two exhibits in the STARTUP Gallery won MUSE awards from the American Association of Museums: Pizza Run - A Slice of Programming won a Silver Level MUSE Award in the category of Interactive Kiosks, and the artifact theater Rise of the Machines won a Gold Level MUSE Award in the Multimedia Installations Category.
The Museum also houses changing exhibits, a cafe, a gift store, and the Lockheed Martin DynaTheather, a giant screen theater similar to IMAX.
