Everyone knows that the best way to finish up a museum exhibition is with a visit to the gift shop. The Natural History Museum’s new blockbuster exhibition Space: Could Life Exist Beyond Earth opened last week, beckoning to anyone asking the question: are we alone in the universe? Nowhere else in Europe can visitors touch a fragment of the moon, snap a selfie holding a piece of Mars and lay their hands on a meteorite older than Earth.
Once visitors have completed their space odyssey, they can make their way into the bespoke exhibition gift shop to explore the Space retail range. Much of the range is also available online by making a voyage to https://www.nhmshop.co.uk/featured/space.html.
The Museum has published two brand-new books so that you can keep on exploring and learning about space, even after touchdown from the exhibition. Curious young minds will be enchanted by Waterhouse the Mouse’s ponderings in Hello Space: Is Anybody out there?
For older audiences, the Museum’s accompanying exhibition book, written by the Museum’s expert planetary scientists, will instantly elevate your bookshelf. Delve into asteroids, meteorites, Mars, icy moons and exoplanets as the scientists explore humankind’s work to discover if life exists elsewhere.
A star (not literally) of the exhibition is an exact replica of a Mars rover. Adoring fans can pick up a t-shirt or tote bag featuring endearing mugshots of six Mars rovers, from Curiosity which landed in 2012 and is still active to Rosalind Franklin which is waiting to launch. These t-shirts and tote bags are made from organic cotton and are exclusive to the Museum.
Elsewhere in the range, those wishing to bring some of the night sky into their own homes can pick up a pack of the classic glow-in-the-dark stars and planets for their ceiling, a gorgeous floating Saturn lamp or a Space torch and projector.
With the Space exhibition and shop open until January 2026, there is plenty of opportunity for the Space range to make it onto Christmas wish lists too.
There’s also plenty more to explore in the on-site shop, from stunning Space-themed posters to jewellery inspired by the constellations.
© The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London
