Astronomical fidget ring made from a meteorite

Jewelrydesignsformen.com's Nine Planets ring is made of gold and meteoric iron, set with gemstones representing all the planets of the solar system, including Pluto*. And it's a fidget ring, which is my favorite kind of ring, because holy crap, can I ever fidget.

The meteorite has been etched with nitric acid to reveal the characteristic patterns, or Widmanstatten figures, of iron meteorites, and set with 9 gemstones representing the planets of our Solar System. Mercury is represented by a rust colored Sapphire, Venus a golden Sapphire, Earth an irradiated blue Diamond, Mars a Ruby, Jupiter an Opal, Saturn a Cats Eye Chrysoberyl with an inlaid 24k gold ring, Uranus a green Sapphire, Neptune a blue Sapphire and Pluto a black Diamond. What really makes this ring special is that the band of meteorite spins independent of the gold ring, so when it is on, the planets rotate around the wearer's finger.

18k gold Nine Planets ring with Meteorite and gemstones (via The Mary Sue)

* Pluto is a planet.

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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The Snowden Principle

http://twitter.com/MrAaronSwainEsq Aaron Swain

…and then I saw the price tag.
- mortdieu
  
  They should make a version with just 8 planets, as it would be both cheaper and more accurate.
  - dragonfrog
    
    Nah, they should make a ring for your other hand with Sedna on it.
    - http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul
      
      And Eris, Ceres, Makemake, Haumea… and several dozen more awaiting discovery and classification.
      - http://www.facebook.com/people/Jeff-Wilkinson/729709687 Jeff Wilkinson
        
        exactly. if one includes Pluto, one must include Eris, at a minimum, and possibly Ceres. the others are more of a stretch. one must have _some_ standards.
      - chenille
        
        Haumea, Quaoar, Makemake, and Sedna are all bigger than Ceres. The first two also have moons.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Daniel-D-Lindmark/1486655461 Daniel D Lindmark
    
    If it were accurate, it would be very hard to use your hand in any meaningful way.
- http://codeflow.org/ Florian Bösch
  
  One price to rule them all, One price to to fool them, One Price to bring them all and in ruin bind them (note the price includes added value tax, sales tax, and De-Beers surcharge, for risks and side effects please consult your nearest evil overlord, ring-wrath, wizzard or elven whitesmith)
http://mattdm.org/ Matthew Miller

The planetarium at the Museum of Science in Boston does a nice thing where they show the orbital paths of all the objects that should qualify to be planets if Pluto were. The sky is a blur of scribbles — it’s full of them. I know you’re basically trolling, but still. The decision to reclassify becomes obvious. But most importantly, it’s not like some ancient thing is losing its status — we were wrong about a lot of things in the 1930s.
- lorq
  
  I don’t trust the competence of astronomers who have difficulty with large numbers.
  - retepslluerb
    
    8 isn’t really a large number.
- http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul
  
  I think the Lords of Science should offer Americans a deal…
  
  If we finally switch to the metric system, we can go back to pretending Pluto is a planet.
  
  (Besides, facilitating the switch to metric is just one more reason to legalize pot.)
  - Andrew Singleton
    
    I’m cool with that.
  - http://www.ikaink.net Itsumishi
    
    Coming from a country with the metric system; pot is about the only thing measured in the imperial system. With the exception of the gram, everything else is in ounces, pounds and divisions of the two.
    - http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul
      
      Interesting. I wonder how that came about.
      
      Once you have a pretty good handle on converting grams to ounces and back, everything else snaps into place. You need just one conversion mentally fixed.
      
      Like meter to yard, quart to liter, inch to cm… pretty soon our Mars probes stop getting lost, and I quit stripping machine screws by mixing them up.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Daniel-D-Lindmark/1486655461 Daniel D Lindmark
  
  Yes, but no human can decide such a thing for everyone. Just because some scientists say they are experts and that Pluto is not a planet, does not magically make pluto not a planet for everyone. It’s just a standard. I happen to follow the cooler standard. My discipline (electrical engineering) is constantly bombarded by championing mediocrity, so I’m doing the same. #ninePlanets
  - http://mattdm.org/ Matthew Miller
    
    Sure; it’s clearly a planet by some working definition. Tomato fruit, tomato vegetable? But I think it’s kind of funny to get all obsessed about something that just happened to be misidentified by mid-20th-century science.
http://twitter.com/Pen_Bird Phlip

“If Pluto were as close to the Sun as us, it would grow a tail. Do you think that’s right behavior for a ‘planet’”? –Neil deGrasse Tyson (IIRC)

And how about the anti-Pluto 90482-Orcus? also locked in a resonance with Neptune?

Accepting Ceres & such as “dwarf planets” is excellent sophistry that expands our Solar System, not diminishes it!
- Andrew Singleton
  
  Fair enough. However I feel Pluto should have been grandfathered in.
  
  I have no scientific reasoning for this.
  
  Also. I want that ring, but I don’t have that kind of money.
  - chenille
    
    And that’s what terms should be about, feeling instead of scientific reasoning, right? Can’t change anything on the baby boomers.
    
    I don’t mind the idea of counting Pluto as a planet, but if you think there should still be nine, you’re basically saying you care more about your memories of elementary school than discovering the universe. It really makes me sad how popular this particular rejection of new science is.
    
    All sorts of new objects – Orcus, Haumea, Quaoar, Makemake, Eris, and Sedna – and all people care about is the one they knew from before. People who supposedly like space, no less.
    - Andrew Singleton
      
      Never said it was objective, or ‘correct’ scientifically speaking. Hell we’ve already sent out inaccurate things for the rest of the cosmos to look at (the gold records on the pioneer and voyager probes. Not to scale, wrong number of objects, etc.)
      - chenille
        
        Inaccuracies happen, but the idea they should be grandfathered in is something new. Maybe there are lots of subjects you can hardly discuss without people saying how much they prefer the old inaccurate version, but this is the first one I’ve run into, and it’s frustrating.
      - Andrew Singleton
        
        @boingboing-25d11f8e1a305f5eaf4caa32877882f3:disqus Well I recognize it as irrational and the new classification serves a highly useful purpose (things that are HUGE compared to asteroids/comets, but don’t qualify as planets in of themselves.)
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      you’re basically saying you care more about your memories of elementary school than discovering the universe.
      
      You’ll have to pry indigo from my cold, dead spectrum.
awjt

**so are Ganymede and Titan
Robert Cruickshank

You could keep everyone happy by wearing a matching Kuiper belt buckle. Besides, that would put Pluto closer to your….nah, not gonna go there.
- dragonfrog
  
  And a puffy Oort anorak?
Nathaniel

Yes, yes it is.
http://rhinocrisy.org/ saurabh

Hindus often wear rings symbolizing the nine planets, although in Hindu cosmology the planets are: Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Rahu and Ketu. The last two are the disembodied head and decapitated body of the dragon Rahu, who periodically tries to swallow the sun and the moon during eclipses.
https://www.google.com/search?q=navagraha+ring
http://celesteagnes.blogspot.com/ Sekino

Just to nitpick about something other than Pluto, that opal looks more Earthy than Jovian to me… But setting an opal in iron took crazy skillz and it is a gorgeous ring.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/6RQW7TAVQTWINCGXSBBVU422S4 Jon
  
  It is a very nice piece of artwork. There is a lot of skill involved, but the opal looks to be just a simple inlay. He does have mad skills, but no mad skills required there, just some epoxy. This also tells me that this is a ring for special occasions, not everyday wear, unless of course you want to replace an opal a few times a year.
http://profiles.google.com/ajaremko Andrew Jaremko

Anyone up for a Kickstarter to buy one each for Phil Plait (the BadAstronomer) and Neil Degrasse Tyson (the man who demoted Pluto)?
- Andrew Singleton
  
  What do we get out of it other than giving awesome people stuff?
  - http://profiles.google.com/ajaremko Andrew Jaremko
    
    The satisfaction of giving amazing props to amazing people. And for some irony for Tyson – a continuous reminder of what he did! ;-)
- http://twitter.com/tardiskitten thisbikeisatardis
  
  Don’t forget Mike Brown, Mr @plutokiller:twitter himself!
- Halloween_Jack
  
  If I had the money, I’d buy two–one for myself and one for archmage Alan Moore.
http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios

Never heard of a fidget ring before, but that thing is gorgeous.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=692761624 Greg Saunders

Are you sure it’s not just a shrunken version of the infinity gauntlet?
Ramone

“* Pluto is a planet.” *

*dwarf planet.

FTFY
http://twitter.com/MrWeeble James Hardy

It’s nice, but I’d rather it have the *correct* number of planets (I never felt Pluto deserved to be called a planet, even before it’s reclassification). And those who believe in grandfathering planets in, I’ll accept that as valid if, and only if, you accept the other former planets:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet#Former_classifications

Ready for 36 planets in the system?
- Andrew Singleton
  
  Can’t wait for the extra-solar-system rings personally.
Sofia Ortiz

I love this guy’s designs. You should also take a look at his women’s stuff – metamorphosisdesign.com . He specializes in custom jewelry (i.e., if you’re an anti-Pluto stickler, he’ll make one for you without Pluto in it). I’ve been wanting one of his rings for ages now.
FYI: “fidget ring” means a ring that has an inner ring (like this one) that can ‘orbit’ around the outer part of the ring, i.e, turn while the rest of it stays in place. It’s pretty neat.
BillGlover

I wonder if the black diamond used for Pluto is a carbonado, because that would be awesome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonado#Extraterrestrial_origin_hypothesis
http://www.facebook.com/kevinmichaelhall Kevin Hall

Pluto is a planet, my friend Tom even wrote a great song about it.

http://mrseley.com/music.cfm
pauldrye

I suppose that Saturn is the cat’s eye chrysoberyl because its chatoyancy looks like a ring cutting across its middle. But I’m going to pretend that it’s because of the Lovecraft connection:

http://yog-blogsoth.blogspot.ca/2011/08/cat-from-saturn.html

So Pluto’s in because it would be unwise to offend the Yuggothians.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

For an extra $10,000 they’ll have a magician enchant it with a spell that, when activated, instantly teleports you the desired planet.

Life support spell not included.
- Andrew Singleton
  
  For that you need the companion ring for the other hand that features representations of the four largest asteroids.
  
  Forged Star-Metal sword recommended if you plan on staying out there for any extended period.
- oasisob1
  
  If it would instantly teleport a person of my choice to the desired planet, I’d buy that.
  
  Also, Pluto is a planet, and there are nine planets in MY Solar System.
http://www.ikaink.net Itsumishi

I’ve always enjoyed fidget rings, until the outer ring inevitably gets just slightly bent and refuses to spin again.
http://www.emeraldislemeteorites.com/ Emerald_Isle_Meteorites

lovely ring-would rather just have a meteorite though…(“,)
Francis Delaney

If you like this check out http://www.jacobalbee.com. I’ve met Jacob at a few craft shows and his stuff is just spectacular.
edgarhjelte

If Pluto’s a planet, then so is yo mama.