National Museum of Nature and Science

The National Museum of Nature and Science is a national museum of natural history and the history of science and technology in Ueno Park, Tokyo. Its permanent exhibitions fill two buildings, the Japan Gallery and the Global Gallery.

History

The museum dates its founding to 1877, the year it was renamed Kyoiku Hakubutsukan (教育博物館), the education museum, and a new building went up in Ueno. The present Japan Gallery building was completed in September 1931 for what was then the Tokyo Science Museum, and was designated an Important Cultural Property in June 2008. The museum has had its present name since 1949. The Global Gallery building opened in full in November 2004.

Exhibitions

The Japan Gallery covers the nature of the Japanese islands, their plants and animals, and how the people of Japan and their relationship with nature took shape. The Narashino Meteorite is on its third floor.

The Global Gallery traces the history of life on Earth over six floors: mammals and birds, biodiversity, the evolution of life with a floor on dinosaurs, and Japanese science and technology since the Edo period, including the re-entry capsule of the Hayabusa probe.

Theater 36○ is a sphere 12.8 metres across with film screens on every side. Outside stand a full-size model of a blue whale, 30 metres long, a D51 steam locomotive built in 1939, and the launcher that sent up Ohsumi, Japan's first artificial satellite, on 11 February 1970.