The Museum of Natural History is open seven days a week with exception listed on the website. The Planetarium hosts shows every weekend and daily during the summer. The event times on this page represent the weekend planetarium shows.
Museum
The museum is open every day from 10:00am to 4:00pm, with last admission at 3:30pm. The museum is closed 10:00am to 1:00pm the first Monday of every month, October through March, for our monthly Homeschool Adventures programming.
The Museum’s collections contains over one quarter million objects pertaining to natural and cultural history assembled from sites around the world.
**Museum admission is $2 per person. Children under age 4 are free.
Planetarium
Located in the Museum of Natural History, the planetarium is a dome theatre which is only open during showtimes. Public planetarium shows are offered at 2pm every Saturday and Sunday, during RI February and April school vacation weeks and daily in July and August. Early arrival is suggested as tickets are sold first-come, first-served. People are not permitted to enter the planetarium once the show has begun.
**Planetarium admission (includes museum admission) is $3 per person. Children under age 4 are not permitted in the planetarium.
Our mission is to steward and interpret natural and cultural collections through exhibits, education and research to inspire people of all ages and cultures to enjoy the natural world, in order to better understand themselves and the world. The Museum of Natural History is Rhode Island’s only natural history museum and is home to the state’s only public planetarium. For more than a century the museum has served as a unique educational, scientific and cultural resource by offering exciting exhibitions and programming that provide ways for children and families to learn about our world and its people.