Our New Solar System

Firstly, is the new gallery better than the old one? Well, yes, of course! Granted, I’m biased, but I think I’m justified. There’s a lot more going on than the old one. Planets hanging from the ceiling. Games to play, challenges to take on, things to look at, things to, well, … smell. 

If you visited Our Solar System before, you might spot things that haven’t changed. The Mercury, Venus and Mars sections have only had minor updates. The big differences are in the Earth and outer planets sections. We now focus on how the Solar System impacts Earth. Literally. We’ve added more meteorites and a sample of the K-Pg boundary that reveals the aftermath of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. And we’ve added a dinosaur too, because, well, why not? Which, let me tell you, has made the Marketing Team very happy!

At the start of the project, we asked ourselves what we wanted the gallery to achieve. We had some key learning outcomes. I know, I know, I’m starting to sound like a supply teacher – but bear with me, this is just the setup. Two important ones were: 

Ok, so Mr Kendall, you’ve covered learning objective one, but can we have the rest of the lesson outside as it’s such a nice day? Ok, ok – let’s go, I’m a cool teacher, just one of the gang. Oh god, I’ve said ‘gang’, that’s all my street cred gone. Now I’ve said, ‘street cred’. How can I win the class back? I know, let’s not just go outside, let’s go to Other Worlds – our new immersive experience. Have you ever wanted to see a methane-fall on Titan? A volcano erupt on Io? Travel to the bottom of the ocean on Europa? Well now you can.  

Whenever I see incredible images sent back by missions like Cassini or Juno, I want to know what it would be like to stand on the surface. What would the landscape look like? Other Worlds lets you do just that. With help from scientists actually working on missions to the outer Solar System, we’ve made sure that the landscapes are grounded in reality. This is really what it might look like. Beautiful, familiar, yet alien. No actual aliens though. That we know of. Yet.  

There are too many people that worked on the project to thank individually, both internally and externally. Without our wonderful funders - Wolfson Foundation, Garfield Weston Foundation, and Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 – it could not have happened. But many other people and organisations played a part too. We’ve tried to thank them all on this graphic at the entrance to the gallery, but you always worry you’ve missed someone! So, like a benevolent supply teacher, let me thank the whole class – you’ve all been wonderful. And you must come and visit Our Solar System!