Starting in Asia and extending to the limits of human understanding, The Known Universe is a journey through the cosmos created by the American Museum of Natural History as part of the 2009-2010 Rubin Museum exhibition Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe. Created using the Hayden Planetarium’s Digital Universe Atlas, the world’s most complete map of the observable Universe, the visualisation serves as both an astounding tour of our cosmos and a tribute to centuries of scientific observation and accomplishment.
A journey from the Himalayas to the edge of our cosmic horizon in space and time

videoHistory of technology
The Americas’ oldest book is an intricate work of Maya astronomy
9 minutes

videoComplexity
A radical reimagining of physics puts information at its centre
13 minutes

videoCosmology
Are observers fundamental to physics, or simply byproducts of it?
10 minutes

videoAstronomy
Visualisations explore what the deep future holds for our night sky
6 minutes

videoAstronomy
The remarkable innovations inspired by our need to know the night sky
5 minutes

videoPhysics
To change the way you see the Moon, view it from the Sun’s perspective
5 minutes

videoPhysics
What does it look like to hunt for dark matter? Scenes from one frontier in the search
7 minutes

videoPhysics
Imagining spacetime as a visible grid is an extraordinary journey into the unseen
12 minutes

videoPhysics
The abyss at the edge of human understanding – a voyage into a black hole
4 minutes