Where is the Willamette Meteorite Now?
By Patricia Kohnen At its home far away from Oregon, in New York’s American Museum of Natural History, the Willamette Meteorite is displayed to thousands of people each year. School-bus loads of children join the hundreds of tourists and the scores of scientists visiting the Museum, one of New York’s prime attractions. By February 2000, a seven-story, 333,500-square- foot renovation at the Museum will surround the Meteorite. This $210 million project–called the Rose Center for Earth and Space–will include a new, and spectacular, [Hayden] Planetarium plus multi-media displays at the Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth and the Cullman Hall of the Universe. “The dazzling centerpiece of the Rose Center for Earth and Space, which will transform the entire north side of the Museum on West 81st Street, is an 87-foot sphere that appears to float within a 95-foot high glass walled cube.” The sphere houses the new Planetarium, recreated as a virtual reality simulator, and the multi-sensory Big Bang
