Eight-foot tall aliens, spaceships, a depressed robot and Douglas Adams's nose are just some of the highlights at the Science Museum's exhibition on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Fan or first-comer to the science-fiction cult phenomenon, this mind-boggling show takes you on a journey from an English kitchen to the edge of outer space.

With more than 200 original costumes, props, and large-scale sets from the hit film released last month, this display is truly immersive.

But it also invites you to explore the science behind the fiction.

"There is a long history of using science fiction to second guess science fact," says Science Museum spokesman Stephen Bromberg.

The museum's permanent collection includes a sci-fi epic written in 1637, about the voyage of a hero who lands on the sun.

"Many rocket scientists at the beginning of the 20th century were eager consumers of science fiction," Bromberg added. "We try to inspire in the same way as Jules Verne and HG Wells did."

Douglas Adams created The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy more than 25 years ago as a 6-part radio drama. It became a BAFTA-winning TV series, a computer game, and a best-selling novel with its four sequels before finally being shot for the big screen.

Created by the team behind the movie, the exhibition is one of the museum's largest temporary shows so far.

It starts with a white picket fence and the non-descript kitchen of spineless Englishman Arthur Dent.

But when you turn the corner, a Vogon spacecraft hovers above the bulldozed back of the house. (The sharp-eyed will notice that the ship's jet engines have the shape of square British power sockets. Perhaps an inside joke in the light of Vogons' love for red-tape?)

Here you meet Jeltz, captain of the creatures that are so ugly that even evolution gave up on them. The costume of the eight-foot tall alien has yak hair eyebrows and glass eyes made by a factory that produces them for humans. The suit has around 300 sensors inside the face and was controlled by five people.

Then the scientific questions start: How big is our universe? (More than 13 billion light-years in every direction.) Could our universe be one of many parallel universes? (Scientists disagree.) And is there life on other planets? (We haven't found any.)

The next room whisks you worlds away to the Heart of Gold - a serene white globe of a starship.

In theory, teleportation is possible. If you can teleport an atom, which has been done, you should be able to do the same with a group of atoms like a human being. But the original must first be destroyed before it can be rebuilt, which raises tough ethical questions.

Then you are introduced to the life-sized costume of Marvin, the paranoid android with "Genuine People Personality". Due to a series of complicated events related to time-travel, he is 37 times older than the universe. (Which helps to explain his depression.)

You follow a winding corridor, pass through two giant hairy legs in high heels and into the temple of Viltvodle VI. The Jatravartid people of this dreary planet, where the aerosol can was invented before the wheel, believe the entire universe was in fact sneezed out of a giant nose. Hence there are noses everywhere - cast from Douglas Adams's actual nose.

On goes your journey to the supercomputer Deep Thought. In the story, this machine takes seven and a half million years to come up the answer to "the meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything": simply 42.

While the average home PC is now more powerful than all the computers NASA used to put a man on the moon, we are still a long way short of a Deep Thought. For now, flesh and blood is still in control.

Physicists are also still striving to find a Theory of Everything that unites the science of the smallest and the biggest things. A theory that reconciles the uncertain principles of sub-atomic forces with the clear-cut laws of gravity and relativity that rule planets and galaxies. If it exists, it is likely to be as simple and as beautiful as 42.

Another exhibition highlight is the Planet Factory, where custom-made planets such as Earth used to be built by the likes of designer Slartibartfast. (He won an award for tailoring the fjords of Norway.)

Here you get the chance to probe the growth of planets from the Big Bang to the Big Crunch.

Since the broadcast of the original radio series in 1978, Adams has campaigned for the story to be turned into a movie. Now, four years after his death from a heart attack at age 49, it will see the light as film and exhibition. It would have pleased Adams "enormously", said Robbie Stamp, executive producer of both.

The exhibition reflects the writer's deep wish that mankind ought to have "just a bit more humility about his place in the universe", Stamp adds.

Though it all, the immortal words on the cover of the actual Hitchhiker's Guide remains to guide you along: "Don't Panic."

  • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy exhibition opens at the Science Museum on 28 May. Bookings on 0870 870 4868.