OUT OF THIS WORLD.

The exterior of the BMW Individual M850i NIGHT SKY is a tribute to the ‘blue hour’, a phenomenon that occurs in the period of twilight in the morning and evening when the sun is at a significant depth below the horizon and residual, indirect sunlight takes on a predominantly blue shade. In order to transfer this moment to the vehicle‘s concept and thus capture its special feature, the BMW Individual M850i NIGHT SKY was painted vertically in two-tone by hand. Starting with a strong San Marino blue, the colour scheme gets progressively darker and leads to a light-absorbing black uni. In order to let the observer feel the depth and vastness of the sky, tinsel and bronze pigments were incorporated into the first layers of clear coat. The vehicle's refinement is completed with a total of seven layers of clear coat.

The Muonionalusta meteorite is named after the location it impacted in today’s Sweden and forms the basis for the BMW Individual M850i NIGHT SKY. Discovered in 1906, it is the oldest iron meteorite in the world at 4,570-million years of age. Its chemical composition, comprising a variety of iron elements, allows further comprehensive conclusions to be drawn. For example, these elements formed into an iron core – whose composition is similar to that of the Earth – inside a glowing preplanet measuring several hundred kilometres in diameter. The parameters of pressure, weightlessness and time were crucial for the formation of the so-called Widmanstätten pattern, a design-defining element characterised by its orthogonal shape and formed when kamacite (low in nickel) and taenite (high in nickel) cool one degree per thousand years. The fact that fragments of this iron core can now be found on Earth is due to the collision of two equally sized preplanets about 400 million years ago. "We can determine this period relatively well because we can measure the cosmic radiation of the artefact," says Dr. Thomas Müller of the Max Planck Institute and scientific advisor to BMW Individual.

The impact itself could only be dated at "about" one million years ago, Dr. Müller explains. To put this into perspective, however, he adds: "This is the equivalent of four ice ages. The entry speed of the meteorite into the atmosphere was about 72km/s. This corresponds to a speed of about 260‘000 km/h. The enormous forces acting on the meteorite pushed its structure beyond its limits and resulted in fragments of it scattering across a 20 km² area of Scandinavia.