Presented by ATOWAK Native Content

ATOWAK’s Mars Age Is One of the Most Technically Ambitious Watches of the Year

The Phantom Violet special edition — limited to 102 pieces — features a proprietary orbital time display, a hand-polished black jade moon, and a dial inspired by NASA imagery of the Martian sky.

Close-up of a Mars Age limited edition watch with a colorful mechanical dial and purple fabric strap.ATOWAK

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ATOWAK watches don’t read time the way other watches do. It’s Mars Age timepiece is no exception to that rule. It’s the result of three years in development and part of the brand’s Transformed Imagination series — a mechanically complex suite of watches built around a proprietary orbital time display system with representations of Mars, Earth, and the Moon each moving across the dial independently.

The Mars Age comes in a Phantom Violet Special Edition, which limited to 102 individually numbered pieces, as well as standard-edition references in Origin Grey and Traverse White.

Silver wristwatch with a white textured strap and a complex mechanical dial featuring blue and black accents, worn on a wrist.ATOWAK

A dial that doubles as a solar system

At the center of Mars Age is ATOWAK’s proprietary Orbital Time Display System, where representations of Mars, Earth, and the Moon each follow their own trajectories across the dial, driven by a planetary gear system. Hours are told by a rotating Mars disc — an 8mm titanium component created through selective high-precision laser melting at 0.02mm accuracy, recreating the Martian canyon system of Valles Marineris.

The disc rotates 30° per hour, orbiting and spinning simultaneously. Minutes are handled by a “spacecraft relay” mechanism — a rocket hand and a double-ended hand that alternate every 60 minutes along a 180° scale. The entire central module completes one revolution every 120 minutes.

The Moon is made of black jade

The Moon component on the dial is hand-shaped from a single piece of natural black jade, measuring 3mm in diameter. It’s ground with a diamond wheel and hand-polished with diamond powder to a mirror finish, with the translucent jade layer controlled to 0.02mm — thin enough that light passes through with a subtle deep-green halo.

Black textured strap wristwatch with a complex mechanical dial labeled "Mars Age" on a reddish soil background.ATOWAK

The case and movement

The Phantom Violet and Origin Grey use carbon fiber cases; Traverse White uses glass fiber. Each is formed under high temperature and pressure, meaning the fiber texture is naturally unrepeatable across pieces. Four Grade 5 titanium inserts are embedded on either side of the case.

The movement is ATOWAK’s AK-08BA modular system, built on a Swiss Sellita SW200 base, running at 28,800 vph with a 38-hour power reserve. The double-domed sapphire crystal features six layers of AR coating, reducing reflectivity to 0.8%.

Why 102 pieces?

The Phantom Violet edition’s production number isn’t arbitrary. A Martian solar day, called a Sol, lasts approximately 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35 seconds — 102 percent of an Earth day. The 102-piece run reflects that additional two percent: the extra 39 minutes that continue ticking on Mars after Earth’s day has ended.