Invisible Worlds is an immersive and interactive 360-degree science-and-art experience in the new Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation that offers a breathtakingly beautiful, scientifically rigorous view into how all life on Earth is connected through a journey through networks of life at all scales.

The latest in the Museum’s long tradition of transporting visitors to new realms, whether across the world via its iconic habitat dioramas or throughout the universe in its Hayden Planetarium Space Shows, Invisible Worlds is housed in a purpose-built space that creates a unique and spectacular immersive presentation. Just as the 180-degree planetarium dome creates the experience of looking up at the night sky, Invisible Worlds is designed to evoke the interconnectedness of all living organisms in our vast and dynamic natural world by inviting visitors into a wide, oval space with 23-foot-high walls, a mirrored ceiling, and an interactive floor.

Invisible Worlds was produced with scientists at the Museum and scientific advisors from around the world and incorporates research and data sets from institutions ranging from the New York Botanical Garden to the BigBrain Project and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

The experience begins with the introductory Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach gallery, which provides a winding approach to the 360-degree venue and prompts visitors to explore the ways in which, across thousands of miles, millions of species, and billions of years, all life on Earth is connected: through segments of our DNA, through our environments, our food webs, and our communication. Video projections, digital interactives, graphics, and striking exhibits—including three species of live poison dart frogs, test tubes with DNA from a diversity of species, 3D-printed digital models of plankton, and a plastinated human brain—reveal to visitors that while some of these connections and interactions are visible, others are too large, too small, too fast, or too slow for the human eye to detect.

In the main Invisible Worlds venue, a 12-minute looping, immersive experience illustrates interdependences within Earth’s ecosystems and the wonder of communication at all scales, from ocean to rainforest, and from satellites above our cities to the signals made by trillions of connections within the human brain. This experience celebrates the richness of life’s diversity and the basic building blocks of life, including DNA, that connect all living things on our planet.

Powered by scientific data, Invisible Worlds represents the latest exhibition mode for conveying accurate, cutting-edge science to the public, using artistic methods to visualize data sets such as 3D renderings of a dragonfly’s nervous system, fish schooling behavior, LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) scans of New York City, and a map of the human brain, among many others.

Just like the settings in the Museum’s renowned dioramas, the intricate scenes in Invisible Worlds are realized using the latest artistic methods and based on observations from real-world locations, including:
· San Diego Bay, California, where a fishing crew pulls in its catch, a humpback whale passes through enroute from breeding grounds in Mexico to feeding grounds in Alaska, and swarms of plankton, krill, and jellyfish swim their nightly commute to the sea surface to feed on algae
· Caxiuanã National Forest, Brazil, an area of the Amazon Rainforest with a towering 15-story canopy that is home to extraordinary plant and animal diversity and is only accessible to humans by boat
· Central Park, New York City, a surprising oasis of biodiversity, with approximately 175 tree species and more than 200 bird species, in spring, when cherry blossoms are blooming and migrating birds are arriving from South America

The venue’s 16 projectors provide a resolution of more than 100 million pixels to show each scene in stunning detail. The visuals in Invisible Worlds are accompanied by a soundtrack designed from natural sounds—including real sounds collected from Central Park—sonified data, and other artistically produced effects projected through a 360-degree sound system comprised of 62 speakers.