Zenith Just Turned a Chunk of Outer Space into a $17,500 Watch

Zenith has reached for the stars with its latest release, the Chronomaster Sport Meteorite. As the name suggests, the brand’s flagship chronograph now arrives with a dial cut from meteorite, each watch carrying a fragment of space-y, cosmic history.

The Chronomaster Sport already has starry credentials—it’s a real IYKYK watch-snob model. It won the 2021 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève “Chronograph” prize and remains one of the benchmarks for high-frequency automatic chronographs, with its trademark ability to time to a tenth of a second.

Now the brand has added an extra sprinkling of wow factor, this time onto the dial of the watch. The new meteorite dials are cut, polished, and hand-finished to reveal the Widmanstätten pattern—a naturally occurring lattice formed when molten iron cools over millions of years in space.

It means no two watches will be identical.

Around this space-age canvas, Zenith has retained the codes of its celebrated 1969 A386: three overlapping sub-dials in silver, gray, and anthracite, baton hour markers with Super-LumiNova, a discreet date at 4:30, plus a polished 41mm steel case with black ceramic bezel.

Inside is the El Primero 3600—the latest evolution of Zenith’s well-regraded 1969 chronograph movement, saved from extinction in the quartz era when watchmaker Charles Vermot hid its tooling. Beating at five hertz, it drives the chronograph hand in a full rotation every ten seconds to measure one tenth of a second and delivers a 60-hour power reserve. The movement is visible through a sapphire case back, complete with blue column wheel and Zenith’s star-shaped rotor.

The Chronomaster Sport Meteorite comes on a steel bracelet with folding clasp and an additional black rubber strap. Price is set at $17,500. Once a Japan-only edition, the watch is now available through Zenith boutiques plus authorized retailers.