™ ™ 
Meteor vs Meteorites, what is the difference? A meteor is the visible "shooting star" you see streaking across the sky at night. A meteorite is the leftover piece that actually makes it through the atmosphere without completely burning up. So actually the famous "Meteor Crater" in Arizona should really have been named the "Meteorite Crater".
Meteors are really moving when they enter the atmosphere at 161,000 miles per hour. That means they are going to dump a lot of energy on the way in and most will simply burn up. They can be stony or iron in composition. Most are rather uninteresting to look at but a rare few have a fantastic metallic crystalline structure.
How old are they? These meteorites are older than the oldest rocks on earth. The theory is they are from asteroids that only recently bumped into Earth. So when they wanted to find the age of the Earth they dated the "Meteor Crater" meteorite and used 4.55 billion years as the age of the Earth. (See Wikipedia for more)
I am making dials from meteorites that have impacted in Namibia, Sweden, Argentina, Russia, and even locally in Arizona. Each meteorite that I use is a known meteorite with a specific verifiable history. Generally I start by buying a slab of meteorite from a meteorite collector. I usually start with a chunk of 50 grams and machine it down to a very thin disk of only 5 grams.
The first meteorite I have worked with is the "Gibeon" metorite which is an iron with nickel meteorite that impacted Namibia thousands of years ago and was discovered in 1836. This material has beautiful interlaced taenite and kamacite crystals in an octahedral shape (visualize two Egyptian pyramids glued together at the base). These crystal patterns are called Widmanstatten lines. They appear after etching the grain pattern with acid. Even though iron/nickel alloys are used today in turbine engines, these beautiful crystals cannot be duplicated by man. They can only be formed in zero gravity at a very slow cooling rate (1 degree C per million years).
After a year of experimenting, I have developed my own process for a high contrast etch that brings out the three dimensional effect of the grain which does not show in the photographs. These watches catch light like no other. Other brands have simply plated the meteorite with Rhodium which destroys the depth effect that mine have.
May 7,2009 Frank Heydrich introduces the World's first COLORED METEORITE™ watches in spectacular metallic colors!
My experience with high temperature super alloys has helped me to develop the process to create colored dials. Viewed in person, these dials have color intensity similar to opals.
Watches can be ordered with meteorites in a variety of colors including:
GOLDEN METEORITE™
BROWN METEORITE™
AQUA METEORITE™
BLUE METEORITE™
PURPLE METEORITE™
CHROMATIC METEORITE™
There are no paints or stains used only the natural colors of the various meteorite elements tuned to specific colors with acid and heat. Frank Heydrich is the originator of colored meteorite watches so exclusivity is guaranteed.