Our Home
Planet Earth is the only home we have in the universe. This section begins with an introduction of the origin of the universe, our solar system, our planet, and life on Earth as we know it. The second half of the gallery explores the evolution of organisms, from their emergence to extinction.
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- Big Bang: Immerse yourselves in a 360° time-travel experience to the beginning of all things—the Big Bang event.
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- Shelter: Get a primer on earth science in this section—how do continents and oceans form? What is the planet made of? How do seasons occur? Find answers to these questions, and much more!
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- Life on Earth: What is life, and what does it comprise? It is quite astonishing how all living things originated from simple single-celled organisms. Millions and millions of years later, the branches on the tree of life have expanded vastly. We have only scratched the surface of cataloguing the millions of species that have ever existed. Visit the Wall of Life to get to know some of them.
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- Evolution and Mass Extinction: As the environment changes throughout the ages, organisms must adapt and survive long enough to pass on their genes—or perish. Extinctions happen all the time naturally, but in certain periods, species go extinct en masse: these events are called mass extinctions. Palaeontologists piece together evidence from the fossil record to infer Earth’s natural history. There have been five mass extinctions so far—but are we living through the sixth?
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- Human Odyssey: Welcome to a family reunion of sorts. Our species, Homo sapiens, has only existed for about 200,000 years: a small blip in time. In this gallery, you can get to know our closest, but long gone, hominid relatives.
