How T. rex can make you think about the future
The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History’s new fossil hall is more than a collection of dinosaur bones – it’s a time machine.
To travel forward through time, select the rear entrance. To go backward in time, walk through the front doors. Either way, visitors to tomorrow’s opening of “The David H. Koch Hall of Fossils – Deep Time” will traverse 3.7 billion years. During that time span, Earth experienced five mass extinctions due to climate changes. The most recent one, triggered by a meteor collision 66 million years ago, accounts for the towering T. rex skeleton in the main gallery.
By showcasing geologic eras that telescope across eons, the exhibition offers a humbling perspective of where humans fit
