Diatom is a relatively young British independent brand founded by Dr Alex Baker and Dr Chris Rose, who are both material science experts who worked in the aerospace industry. They use their connections with the aerospace industry to produce watches that are heavily connected to space – both by sending their watches into space before selling them and also by manufacturing them with components that come or have been to space. Their latest project is the Inner Worlds collection, dedicated to Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon and Mars.
All five of the watches in the collection are limited to 450 pieces each in steel measuring 39.5mm x 9.35mm, and every one of them has been transported above the Armstong Limit to a height of 100,000ft. The Armstrong Limit is the height at which a human needs a spacesuit to survive outside due to atmospheric pressure, though it’s below the official demarcation of the edge of space. However, while technically the watches themselves haven’t been to ‘proper’ space, they each include components that have been.
Starting with the Diatom Inner Worlds Mercury, the custom rotor of the ETA 2892 movement is made from material taken from the Liberty Bell 7 spacecraft – the craft used in the second US manned suborbital spaceflight in 1961. To protect and preserve the historic material, it has been stabilised using a range of alloying agents to make it suitable for use in a watch’s movement. The Mercury’s dial is then themed after the solar blasted landscape of the planet with a pockmarked surface and intense yellow and blue colour scheme. All of the dials in the Inner Worlds collection are first stamped to create the overall pattern, then embossed to add the finer details before being electroplated and painted with enamel layers to add colour.
Second in the Inner Worlds collection (in solar system order) is Venus. The dial here depicts the heavy cloud cover that obscures the planet and which turns the surface of the planet into a scorched wasteland due to the intense heat, represented by the fiery oranges and reds in the centre of the display. The rotor of the ETA 2892 movement here is made from the Atlas-Agena launch vehicle that propelled the Mariner 2 research vessel into space where it travelled to Venus in 1962 (the first successful planetary science mission in humanity’s history).
Inner Worlds Earth has a blue-green dial with a wavy texture that pays tribute to the planet’s life giving waters. The rotor of its movement is made from the thermal insulation of the Apollo 13 Command Module. The legendary craft from 1970 involved in one of the most famous rescue missions of all time and immortalised by Tom Hanks in the film Apollo 13. As with all the watches, you can view the calibre and its rotor through the exhibition caseback.
Switching things up is Diatom’s Inner Worlds Moon, which features its spacefaring material on the dial rather than the rotor. The dial is coated with NWA 11788 lunar meteorite – one of 371 meteorites verified to have originated from the moon. While we think of meteors as objects that originate in the deep recesses of space, the term actually means any rock or metal that lands on Earth from outside its atmosphere – so when a chunk of the moon breaks off and gets pulled in by Earth’s gravity, that is also a meteorite.
Last but by no means least is Inner Worlds Mars. Similar to the Moon edition, it features a textured dial designed to look like the surface of the titular celestial body that is then coated in meteorite. The meteorite in this case is NWA 13187, one of 370 approved meteorites originating from Mars itself, aka a Martian meteor. For those curious, these approvals and authentications are done by the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI).
All five variants are priced at £2,200 and are limited to 450 pieces each. That limitation comes from the rarity of the materials involved in their creation rather than a marketing ploy – they simply can’t make more. As a science nerd, these are some of the coolest space themed watches I’ve seen in a long time and the detail and expression of the dials only makes me giddier.
Price and Specs:
More details at Diatom.
