The Lyman Spitzer Jr. Planetarium, established in 1960, is located at the museum, and produces public astronomy shows, as well as educational classes on various space science topics.

[7] The Fairbanks Museum has seen continuous operation since its founding, other than annual brief closures every January for upkeep and maintenance of the exhibits and facilities, and rotation of the vast collection in and out of storage.

While closed, the weather station and some educational programs continued to operate, holding regular online classes and science livestreams, as well as pandemic situation updates for local residents in Vermont and New Hampshire.

[4] The museum's exhibits include natural specimens, a seasonal wildflower table, a native butterfly house and flower garden, an observation beehive, artistic pieces made out of insects, taxidermy dioramas (moose, bison, flamingos, bears, birds of paradise, snakes, woodchucks and opossums), endangered and extinct species, dinosaurs and fossils, as well as geological displays, ethnographic displays, and various historical and cultural artifacts from around the world.

On the second floor there is an exhibit about atmospheric ice crystal formation, featuring photographs by Snowflake Bentley, a friend of Franklin Fairbanks.

[5] The meteorological instruments are located primarily behind the main building, where they also serve as a weather recording exhibit, as well as on a truss affixed on top of the museum roof.

Also in the gallery is a Fairbanks Scale which displays the equivalent weight of an object or person if it were in the gravitational field of the Moon or other planets in the Solar System.

Live shows and presentations as well as planetarium movies cover a variety of topics, including basic backyard stargazing, the history and development of astronomy, constellations and their association with various mythology and cultures, celestial navigation, artificial satellites and spacecraft missions, Lunar exploration, planetary science, heliophysics, exoplanetary science, astrodynamics, and cosmology.

In 2012, the planetarium was upgraded with the installation of digital hardware and software, greatly increasing capabilities, and allowing for the projection of specialized 360° video.

However, the analog hardware originally used in the 1960s, including a control panel and a dodecahedron with optical pinholes used for star projection, are on permanent display on the main floor of the museum.

From 16 to 24 July 2019, the museum displayed exhibits celebrating the semicentennial of Apollo 11; on 20 July, it hosted an event which featured a real-time rebroadcast of the mission, showings of contemporary documentaries from 1969, model rocket construction and launching, spaceflight simulations, planetarium shows focused on the Moon and both past and future human lunar exploration, as well as lunar regolith and rock samples from various Apollo missions obtained by the museum for temporary display by NASA as part of a public science outreach initiative by the agency in observation of the event.

[17][18][19] During closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the planetarium hosted live online events, answering questions submitted by local residents and students about the topics, including the 2020 Winter Solstice Jupiter-Saturn Conjunction,[20] featuring telescope views and descriptions of the two planets and their moons,[21][22] live coverage of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover landing, hosted by Fairbanks science communicators, featuring live telemetry from NASA JPL during the craft's descent,[23][24] and a commemoration of Yuri's Night 2021, the 60th anniversary of Vostok 1, 40th anniversary of STS-1, the first flight of the Mars 2020 Ingenuity helicopter, as well as International Space Station port relocations and crew rotations of Soyuz MS-17/18 and Dragon Crew-1/2 happening around the same occasion.

For the upcoming 2024 North American Solar Eclipse, the museum is expecting a greater event than that of 2017, as the path of totality will be passing over the area of Vermont, providing a more spectacular viewing opportunity.