Encounters in the Milky Way
2025 | Movie of American Museum of Natural History | English
25 mins
Licensing
Discover the chance encounters that have shaped our place in the universe.
Reaching billions of years into the past and peering millions of years into the future, Encounters in the Milky Way is a time-traveling journey about the cosmic movements that shape our galactic neighborhood.
Narrated by Pedro Pascal, witness spectacular moments in our solar system’s past and future, including the paths of stars, comets, interstellar debris, and visually stunning gas and dust clouds–and, visualized for the first time, a dramatic, ongoing merger of our galaxy with a smaller satellite galaxy.
Developed by a team that includes astronomers, science visualization experts, and artists, Encounters in the Milky Way is made possible by data from one of the most transformative projects of the past century: the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, dubbed the “billion-star survey” for mapping the precise positions, distances, and motions of nearly 2 billion stars in our galaxy.
Encounters in the Milky Way was developed by the American Museum of Natural History (amnh.org) with the major support and partnership of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
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About the American Museum of Natural History (amnh.org)
The American Museum of Natural History, founded in 1869, is one of the world’s preeminent scientific, educational, and cultural institutions. The Museum encompasses more than 40 permanent exhibition halls, including the Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals, which opened in 2021 – those in the Rose Center for Earth and Space and the Hayden Planetarium, as well as galleries for temporary exhibitions. The Museum’s scientists draw on a world-class research collection of more than 34 million artifacts and specimens, some of which are billions of years old, and on one of the largest natural history libraries in the world. Through its Richard Gilder Graduate School, the Museum grants the Ph.D. degree in Comparative Biology and the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) degree, the only such free-standing, degree-granting programs at any museum in the United States. The Museum’s website, digital videos, and apps for mobile devices bring its collections, exhibitions, and educational programs to millions more around the world. Visit amnh.org for more information.
Pedro Pascal
Narrator
Pedro Pascal can currently be seen in HBO’s “The Last of Us” Season 2. He garnered Lead Actor Emmy and Golden Globe Award nominations for his Season 1 performance and won the 2024 Screen Actors Guild Award for “Male Actor in a Drama Series.” Up next, Pascal will be seen in Ari Aster’s Eddington and Celine Song’s Materialists, as well as Marvel’s highly anticipated The Fantastic Four: First Steps. All three movies will premiere in summer 2025. He is currently in production on the next Avengers movie, Avengers: Doomsday. In 2026, Pascal will star in Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu. Additional credits include A Strange Way of Life, Freaky Tales, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II, Disney’s “The Mandalorian,” the Netflix original series “Narcos,” and HBO’s “Game of Thrones.”
Sean M. Decatur
President, American Museum of Natural History
Sean M. Decatur became President of the American Museum of Natural History in 2023, after nearly a decade of distinguished service as president of Kenyon College. He has served on numerous advisory boards, including the Board on Life Sciences at the National Academy of Sciences, as chair of the Advisory Board for the Center for the Advancement of Science Leadership and Culture at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and as an advisory committee member for Getty’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide initiative. He serves on the Board of Managers of Swarthmore College and is on the boards of the Joyce Foundation, the Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA), New York City Tourism +Conventions, and the Bank Street College of Education. Prior to joining Kenyon College, Decatur was dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Oberlin College, where he was also professor of chemistry and biochemistry. Previously, he was professor at Mount Holyoke College, where he helped establish atop research program in biophysical chemistry, and a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute ofT echnology. He has won research grants from the National Science Foundation and National Institutes ofHealth and from private foundations, including the Alzheimer’s Association and the Dreyfus Foundation, and is the author of numerous scholarly articles. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Decatur earned his bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College and his Ph.D. degree in biophysical chemistry from Stanford University.