The meteorite
As old as the solar system
Every Rivus dial began as part of the molten core of a small body that never became a planet. It formed some 4.5 billion years ago and was later shattered in a collision.
- 4.5 billion years agoThe metal core of a small body forms
- millions of yearsThe core cools one degree every thousand years
- about a million years agoA fragment falls near the Muonio river
- 1906The first piece is found in Sweden
- todayA slice becomes your dial
Chapter one
A core without a planet
In the early solar system, small planetary bodies melted and separated into layers, just as Earth did, with iron sinking to the centre. When one of these bodies was destroyed in a collision, fragments of its nickel-iron core were thrown into space, where they drifted for billions of years. One of them was on a very long journey to northern Sweden.
Chapter two
The fall at Muonionalusta
Roughly a million years ago the fragment struck what is now Swedish Lapland, near the Muonio river. Ice ages buried and scattered the pieces; the first was found in 1906. The meteorite was named Muonionalusta and classified as a fine octahedrite (type IVA), prized for the beauty of its internal structure.
Chapter three
The pattern no one can forge
Inside the iron, two nickel-iron alloys, kamacite and taenite, crystallised into interlocking bands as the core cooled, roughly one degree every thousand years. The result is the Widmanstätten pattern, a geometric lattice that forms only over millions of years in space. It cannot be manufactured or copied. When a polished slice is etched with acid, the pattern appears, different in every cut. That slice becomes a dial.
1 °C per 1,000 yearsThat is how slowly the core cooled while the pattern of your dial was forming.
From meteorite to certificate
Our dials are made from Muonionalusta with documented origin. Every dial comes with a certificate of authenticity from the Museum of Meteorites, a member of the International Meteorite Collectors Association (IMCA).