Louis Moinet Space Mystery Limited Edition
After creating spectacular high end watches that incorporate fragments of the Moon, Mars, and the oldest known rock in the solar system, the Ateliers Louis Moinet now comes with a new haute-horlogerie creation housing authentic fragments of the carbonaceous CM chondrite meteorite. Christened as Space Mystery, this new timepiece includes authentic fragments of a mysterious meteorite from the far-flung regions of space that holds traces of amino acids – possibly one of the first forms of life in the universe.
Also, Space Mystery is the world’s first “satellite tourbillon®”: the cage is balanced by means of a planet that rotates around it. This unique Fine Watchmaking composition is showcased on a dial in Magic Blue – a colour whose exact composition remains one of Louis Moinet’s closely-guarded secrets.
The 46-mm-diameter watch offers many other exclusive features, the fruit of almost two years of development. The first, and no doubt the most visible, is the Magic Blue dial. Its precise composition is secret – and known to Louis Moinet alone. The blue is unlike anything achieved using enamel, lacquer, or galvanisation. It offers unique depth and power, evocative of the immensity of the galaxy.
An outsize tourbillon is located at 12 o’clock. Its balance wheel and bridge have been crafted in authentic Louis Moinet style; the upper part is in blued titanium. The tourbillon cage, boasting an exceptional diameter of 13.59 mm, hangs suspended in mid-air, 1.8 mm above the dial. Not only does this satellite tourbillon – also exclusive to Louis Moinet – rotate on its own axis, it is itself in orbit, as is its very own satellite planet, revolving every 60 seconds. What is more, contrary to existing off-axis tourbillons, the axis of rotation of the Space Mystery tourbillon is not the same as that of the hours and minutes hands.
At 9 o’clock sits Space Mystery’s most singular aspect of all: an aperture in the dial houses an authentic fragment of the amino acid meteorite. The Space Mystery case is entirely hand-engraved and hand-polished. On either side of the crown, each caseband will include two other authentic fragments of heavenly bodies – one from Mars and the other from the Moon. There will be four editions of Space Mystery, each comprising 8 watches (2 in white gold, 2 in rose gold).
This is a limited edition of 8, because the latter is a visual reminder of the infinity symbol. Invented by the mathematician John Wallis in 1655, its shape is similar to the figure 8-shaped plane curve known as the lemniscate of Bernouilli.
The origin of the carbonaceous CM chondrite meteorite is a mystery. The presence of non-terrestrial amino acids could indicate that it originated outside our solar system over 4.5 billion years ago. The best-known CM chondrite is the Murchison meteorite that fell to earth in Australia in 1969. Analysis of the meteorite has led scientists to conclude that it alone contained over 200 different amino acids – the probability that it contains the first traces of non-terrestrial life is thus non-negligible. Nobody yet knows exactly where this meteorite came from. The presence of non-terrestrial amino acids could indicate that it came from outside our solar system, over 4.5 billion years ago. Another theory is that it came from a comet, or from the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
