Time travel doesn't exist, or does it?

The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences has done its best to take you back in time, way back. In fact, the Raleigh museum has an exhibition that's totally Jurassic.

"Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries" will be on display through March 2, and includes a variety of skeletons, moving displays and re-creations.

Today the museum will hold its monthly "First Friday" event from 5-9 p.m., featuring a showing a showing of the Natural Horror Picture Show "Dinosaurs!" at 7 p.m. Live music will also be performed by The Scarlet Divide.

Also, the museum is hosting a free lecture on Thursday at 7 p.m. and Feb. 9 at 12:30 p.m. by Dr. John R. Hutchinson of The Royal Veterinary College, University of London, titled, "How Fast was T. rex?" said Emelia Cowans, assistant communications director at the museum.

Included in the dinosaurs exhibition are a 60-foot model of an Apatosaurus skeleton; a full-size cast skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex; a robotic 6-foot model of a T. rex skeleton that walks in place; a life-size model of a newly identified Tryannosaur that was covered in a feather-like structure most closely related to today's feathered birds; a 700-square-foot recreation of a prehistoric environment; and a trophy wall of mounted dinosaur skulls.

This exhibition is organized by the American Museum of Natural History in New York in collaboration with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Houston Museum of Natural Science, California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco and The Field Museum in Chicago.

The Apatosaurus, formerly known as the Brontosaurus, lived approximately 140 million years ago during the Jurassic Period. It was one of the largest land animals that ever existed with an average length of 75 feet and a mass of at least 23 metric tons. The Apatosaurus was a grazing animal with a very long neck and a long tail that served as a counterweight and fossilized footprints indicate that it probably lived in herds.

The Tyrannosaurus rex — meaning tyrant lizard — lived throughout what is now western North America, approximately 68 to 65 million years ago and was among the last dinosaurs to exist prior to the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event approximately 65.5 million years ago. More than 30 specimens of T. rex have been identified.

The abundance of fossils has allowed research into many aspects of its biology, including life history and biomechanics. An example of understanding the dinosaur's biomechanics will be displayed in a robotic 6-foot-long mechanical T. rex skeleton walking in place. It is considered the most accurate three-dimensional representation of a dinosaur in motion ever created.

One of the largest re-creations of a prehistoric environment ever built will be on display at the museum.

The 700-square-foot diorama — a three-dimensional model — is an accurate representation of life as it was 130 million years ago in one of the most important locations for fossil discovery, the Liaoning Province, in northeastern China.

The first widely acknowledged feathered dinosaur, Sinosauropteryx prima, was discovered in Liaoning and unveiled at a scientific meeting in 1996. Other notable discoveries have been an intact embryo of a pterosaur, Repenomamus robustus — a cat-sized mammal that ate dinosaurs.

A large "trophy wall" of mounted dinosaur skulls, ranging from the three-horned Triceratops to the dome-headed Pachycephalosaurus, illustrates the latest theories on the purposes of the unusual horns, frills, crests and domes found on many dinosaur skulls.