New York’s Milky Way Show Leads to Major Space Discovery

“Encounters in the Milky Way,” the latest immersive show at New York’s Hayden Planetarium, unveils a groundbreaking astronomical discovery: a never-before-seen spiral structure in the Oort Cloud.

This icy shell of debris at the edge of our solar system, once thought to be a loosely scattered zone, was visualized using real scientific data and advanced modeling techniques for the show’s production.

During development, curator and astrophysicist Jackie Faherty, working alongside planetary scientist David Nesvorny, identified this spiral pattern, a finding that has since been peer-reviewed and published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Narrated by actor Pedro Pascal, the production blends narrated storytelling, music, and high-resolution cosmic visualizations to trace the motion of our solar system through the galaxy.

“Encounters in the Milky Way” also marks the 25th anniversary of the Rose Center for Earth and Space and is the seventh original show created for the American Museum of Natural History’s planetarium.