Skip to main content

Swatch lets you put a stunning Webb space image on a watch face

New Swatch designs featuring images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope.
ESA/Swatch

Space fans have been marveling at the stunning images beamed to Earth by the James Webb Space Telescope ever since it went into operation last year.

The most powerful space telescope ever built is using its near-infrared camera (NIRCam) to peer deeper into space than ever before, with scientists hoping that its discoveries could help unlock some of the mysteries of the universe.

Science aside, many of the images are beautiful in their own right, showing colorful nebulae and dazzling galaxies far from Earth.

Now, in a special partnership between the European Space Agency and watchmaker Swatch, it’s possible to create your own watch face using one of these amazing images.

Six new “Swatch X You” designs have been made available for a limited time, with each one featuring a space image captured by these groundbreaking telescopes.

You can design your watch face using the online configurator on the Swatch X You website.

The watch, which costs $135, will be delivered along with an ESA-branded strap, a special sleeve, and a postcard showing the telescope image used for the design.

The offer launched on Wednesday and will run through December 17.

ESA’s Professor Carole Mundell commented on the collaboration, describing it as a “wonderful opportunity to share our fascination for space and science through these beautiful, inspiring designs.”

Mundell added: “Astronomers were originally the keepers of date and time. Today, our telescopes look back thousands, millions, even billions of years. Whenever you check the time, these watches will also give you a breathtaking glimpse of time and space on a cosmic scale.”

In a related effort, the United States Postal Service (USPS) last year launched a specially designed stamp to celebrate the James Webb Space Telescope. The image on the stamp shows an artist’s digitally created depiction of the telescope, set against a striking starscape.

Editors' Recommendations

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
James Webb Space Telescope celebrated on new stamps
Two new stamps celebrating the James Webb Space Telescope, issued by the USPS in January 2024.

Two new stamps celebrating the James Webb Space Telescope, issued by the USPS in January 2024. USPS

Beautiful images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope have landed on a new set of stamps issued this week by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS).

Read more
James Webb captures a unique view of Uranus’s ring system
This image of Uranus from NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows the planet and its rings in new clarity. The Webb image exquisitely captures Uranus’s seasonal north polar cap, including the bright, white, inner cap and the dark lane in the bottom of the polar cap. Uranus’ dim inner and outer rings are also visible in this image, including the elusive Zeta ring—the extremely faint and diffuse ring closest to the planet.

A festive new image from the James Webb Space Telescope has been released, showing the stunning rings of Uranus. Although these rings are hard to see in the visible light wavelength -- which is why you probably don't think of Uranus as having rings like Saturn -- these rings shine out brightly in the infrared wavelength that Webb's instruments operate in.

The image was taken using Webb's NIRCam instrument and shows the rings in even more detail than a previous Webb image of Uranus, which was released earlier this year.

Read more
James Webb spots tiniest known brown dwarf in stunning star cluster
The central portion of the star cluster IC 348. Astronomers combed the cluster in search of tiny, free-floating brown dwarfs.

A new image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows a stunning view of a star cluster that contains some of the smallest brown dwarfs ever identified. A brown dwarf, also sometimes known as a failed star, is an object halfway between a star and a planet -- too big to be a planet but not large enough to sustain the nuclear fusion that defines a star.

It may sound surprising, but the definition of when something stops being a planet and starts being a star is, in fact, a little unclear. Brown dwarfs differ from planets in that they form like stars do, collapsing due to gravity, but they don't sustain fusion, and their size can be comparable to large planets. Researchers study brown dwarfs to learn about what makes the difference between these two classes of objects.

Read more