WASHINGTON, D.C. — NASA and the Smithsonian have partnered to create a new ‘Earth Information Center’ exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History. It uses data from real NASA satellites to display information on everything from greenhouse gasses to ocean flows.

The 2,000-square-foot exhibit opens to the public Tuesday and will remain on display "through 2028."

“We have about 25 different satellites, different missions, different sensors in space looking down at Earth, measuring all aspects of what’s happening on land and the oceans, the atmosphere, the ice and the life they all support. So, the data you see in this exhibit is really showing you how all of that works and how it’s changing over time,” said Karen St. Germain, division director of NASA's Earth Sciences Division.

The exhibit has interactive kiosks where visitors can look at satellite images from space or zoom into a specific area to see measurements of greenhouse gasses and temperatures. 

Some information in the exhibit is in real-time. 

“There’s what we call the dashboard, and that’s got a lot of real-time data, including real-time images from space... things like temperatures, precipitation, weather. We’ve got a panel on sea-level rise and how that’s changed on global temperatures, so you can see all of that information up to date,” St. Germain said. 

The exhibit features a large “state-of-the-art” curved video wall.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who traveled to space 38 years ago, said in addition to being a space agency, NASA is “also a climate agency,” and he hopes visitors will leave with a new perspective on how Earth is changing over time.

“It’s amazing what you can see from Earth's orbit. And, I could see, in some cases, how we’re messing it up,” Nelson said.