Urwerk’s Latest Otherworldly Watch Can Track The Earth’s Movement

From the same Swiss watchmakers who made Robert Downey Jr.’s “Iron Man” timepiece.

The elite Swiss watchmakers at Urwerk have unveiled a truly otherworldly accessory: the UR-100 SpaceTime.

That name isn’t as hyperbolic as it seems: the luxury timepiece uses satellite-accurate hour and minute hands to keep track of both time and distance traveled over the Earth’s equator. 

The red-tipped pointers disappear after 60 minutes to be replaced by the next hour, before reappearing to display how far the earth has moved at hourly increments. 

Confused? Let the folks at Monochrome clear things up: 

Basically, it uses the speed of Earth at the equator or the Earth’s orbital speed around the sun to display the distance traveled from these different perspectives in about 20 minutes. For instance, at the equator, the circumference of the Earth is 40,070 kilometres, and the day is 24-hours long so the speed is 1,670 kilometres/hour. 

That gives you the 555.55km traveled in about 20 minutes by the indicator at 10 o’clock. In a similar fashion, the indicator at 2 o’clock shows the distance Earth has traveled around the sun, a journey spanning some 35,740 km every 20 minutes.

The UR-100 SpaceTime comes in at 41 mm x 49.7 mm x 14 mm thick. Robb Report notes that the case’s diameter is 2.7 mm longer than that of the UR-110RF that was worn by Robert Downey Jr. in Ironman.

The front features a sapphire crystal bubble dome, and an exhibition caseback offers a view of the automatic calibre 12.01 movement, which ticks at 28,800 vibrations per hour.

Available in black titanium or stainless steel and with a black fabric or black alligator strap, only 25 examples of the Urwerk UR-100 SpaceTime will be sold for $49,000.