A towering barosaurus is an impressive welcome to the largest museum in the world dedicated to science and native cultures. During the museum's mid-1990s renovation, several prehistoric specimens were remodeled to correspond with developments in evolutionary understanding. The T. rex, for example, was once thought to have walked upright, Godzilla-style; but now is believed to have stalked its prey with its head lowered and its tail parallel to the ground. The rest of the museum is equally dramatic: The Hall of Ocean Life features a life-size model of a blue whale, suspended from the cavernous ceiling, while the Gem and Mineral Collection is the setting for the 563-carat Star of India, the largest sapphire on display anywhere. The Hall of Meteorites is home to the 34-ton Anighito meteor, while the museum's IMAX theater screens eye-popping nature documentaries. The Hayden Planetarium in the Rose Center for Earth and Space—a giant silvery globe that’s dazzling to behold after sundown—houses both the Space Theater, which uses a customized Zeiss Star Projector to bring the night sky to life, and Big Bang, where surround-sound and lighting effects transport visitors back to the universe’s earliest days.
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