You know the one. They text you when the space station is about to pass over, they stopped the car once to look at the Moon, and they have never quite forgiven anyone for what happened to Pluto.
Space is printed on a great deal of forgettable merchandise. Museum shops have an advantage: the Science Museum in London can print from its own archive of astronomical drawings and photographs, and the American Museum of Natural History has the Hayden Planetarium upstairs.
We picked 15 from 7 museum shops and grouped them by where they end up: with a child, on a desk, on a wall, on a person, and two bigger pieces at the end. Science Museum prices are in British pounds.
A 200-piece puzzle of the planets by the puzzle maker Londji, illustrated by Carmen Saldaña, finishing at 67 by 48 cm. It glows in the dark, so the last step is switching off the light. For ages 7 and up. The price is in Canadian dollars.
A first telescope from Celestron: a 50mm Newtonian reflector with 20x magnification, glass optics and a metal tabletop tripod. A panel comes off to show how the mirrors send light to the eye. For ages 8 and up. At 20x, think of it as a telescope for the Moon.
By day it is an ordinary globe with countries and cities. When the room goes dark a light sensor switches it on and the constellations appear, with their names. The globe is 22.8 cm across and stands 36 cm tall. It needs four C batteries, which are not included.
A glass ball about 3.5 inches across with the solar system etched inside, sitting on a black base with the museum's logo that lights it up. A remote changes the light through 15 colors. It runs from the USB cord in the box, and it comes boxed for giving.
Eight notecards, each with a different sketch by Carter Emmart, the museum's director of astrovisualization, from scenes in the Hayden Planetarium Space Shows. Blank inside, about 4.5 by 6 inches, with envelopes. A good one for the person who has seen every show under that dome.
Richard Hinckley Allen's old and much-loved reference on where the names of the stars and constellations come from, across Chinese, Arabic, Greek and Roman tradition. A 592-page softcover, 5.5 by 8.5 inches. It is a book for dipping into, one star at a time, more than for reading straight through.
The Science Museum prints the first two to order from its own collection, on fine art paper or canvas, framed or unframed. Made-to-order prints cannot be returned, and the shop says it cannot currently ship to Northern Ireland.
The Moon as Galileo drew it for Sidereus Nuncius, the short book of 1610 in which he reported what his telescope had shown him. The roughness along the shadow line was the news. The smallest print is 35 by 28 cm including the border, and the largest is 60 by 45 cm.
Isaac Roberts photographed the Andromeda Galaxy on 29 December 1888 with a four-hour exposure through a 20-inch reflecting telescope. The shop describes it as the first photograph to show the galaxy's spiral form. Sizes run from 28 by 35 cm to 45 by 60 cm.
Alma Thomas turned to space as a subject in the years of the Apollo missions, and The Eclipse is one of those paintings. The Brooklyn Museum's shop prints it on demand on acid-free cotton paper at 16 by 20, 22 by 28 or 32 by 40 inches, framed or not. Allow up to three weeks, and it cannot be returned.
Every phase of the Moon for 2027 on one long poster, 18 inches high and 32 wide, printed in black and metallic inks with matte and gloss varnishes. It tells you when the next full moon is and very little else, which is the appeal. It does expire.
The Science Museum's own Grand Tour design, made in honor of the Voyager mission to the outer planets. A unisex T-shirt in organic cotton, printed in London, in sizes XS to XXL. The shop sells it as an exclusive.
Alma Thomas painted Starry Night and the Astronauts in 1972, in the years of the Apollo missions, and it belongs to the Art Institute of Chicago. This tote carries the painting on a cotton and polyester blend, 14 by 16 inches. Space for people who prefer their space abstract.
A travel umbrella printed with the James Webb Space Telescope's image of the Carina Nebula. It opens and closes automatically, measures 36 inches across when open and 11 inches when closed, and comes with a sleeve. A reason to be less annoyed about a cloudy night.
A 12-inch Moon globe from Replogle, in a National Geographic special edition, marked with 750 locations: craters, mountain ranges, highlands, seas and rays. A rechargeable LED lights it from inside. The page does not describe the base, so look at the photographs before you order.
Airfix's Saturn V, the rocket that carried the Apollo crews to the Moon, at 1:144 scale. There are 79 parts and the finished model stands 76.8 cm tall, so decide where it will live before you start gluing. For ages 8 and up. No shipping to Northern Ireland at present.
We read the public catalogs of the museum shops. Nobody paid to be on this list, and no brand sent us samples: we have not handled these items ourselves. Sizes and materials come from each shop's own product page, which is also where you buy.
Prices can change and items sell out. When a pick is no longer listed by its shop, it drops off this page.
Want to see everything? Browse all 326 space and astronomy items from museum shops.