Samsung released new watch faces for its Galaxy Watch devices on March 31 which tell users the current time on the different planets in the solar system. Dubbed Galaxy Time, the South Korean tech giant revealed that these watch faces were developed in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA). There are eight watch faces in total corresponding with the eight planets. Alongside the current time on the planets, these watch faces also share other relevant data about these celestial bodies.
Announcing the new watch faces in a post on its German newsroom, Mario Winter, Vice President Marketing at Samsung Electronics Germany, said, “In this project, “Galaxy” really says it all. Together with ESA, one of the largest partners in space travel, we have developed a watch face that offers Samsung Galaxy users a new and unique way to explore our solar system. With the scientific data provided by ESA to Samsung developers, Galaxy Time users will have the opportunity to effortlessly look beyond our home planet to the planetary neighborhood on their Samsung Galaxy Watch.”
ESA scientist Melanie Heil explained that despite being part of the same star, the Sun, different planets in the solar system revolve around it and rotate around its own axis at different speed compared to the Earth. As a result, what we experience as days, hours, and seconds are entirely different for each of the seven other planets — Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
To develop the Galaxy Time watch faces, Samsung used ESA’s data on the rotation speed and orbit of the eight planets around the Sun. The time that users will see is not necessarily the exact time of these planets but their representation relative to Earth’s time. Apart from time, the faces also offer interesting insights into the solar system, such as the distance of neighboring planets from the Sun and Earth, the number of their moons, their exact position every second and the planetary seasons.
Samsung revealed that the idea behind the watch face came from the creative agency Leo Burnett Germany whereas the creative brand consultancy Metadesign in Berlin led the development of Galaxy Time. These watch faces are compatible with all Galaxy Watch devices that run on Wear OS, which is Galaxy Watch 4 or later.