Jon Larsen (NO)

Jon Larsen is a citizen scientist, jazz guitarist, and artist. Throughout his career as a musician, he produced more than 600 jazz records with legendary musicians, founded the group Hot Club de Norvège, and was awarded several prestigious awards.

Ever curious, Jon Larsen began his search for stardust in 2009, finally identifying the world's first urban micrometeorite in 2015. Since then Jon Larsen has held lectures all over the world, sharing his findings with renowned scientific institutions including NASA.

Today, he studies micrometeorites full-time as a guest researcher at the University of Oslo and travels extensively to share his work with universities, institutions, and interest groups around the world. He also recently joined the Gözen Research Group, which studies the origins of life and protocells.

In 2022 he found Denmark`s first micrometeorite on the roof of Superbrugsen in Ørbæk, later also at 4Kløverskolen in Frørup and at the roof of Kunstrum Fyn. During Tårup Dark Sky Festival he will continue his search for stardust on Fyn.

Micrometeorites are tiny mineral remnants from space — cosmic rocks the size of a grain of sand — that have landed on Earth. While most are particles shed by asteroids and comets, some are older than the Sun, and others have traveled to Earth from the outermost reaches of space. 
It is truly astonishing that these tiny specks of stardust, that are no larger than the periods in these sentences, can be collected and identified. They travel unfathomable distances, plummet through the Earth's atmosphere, scream to a halt, mix with terrestrial and anthropogenic imposters, and can somehow still be discovered and photographed in extraordinary detail.

For more than a century, scientists searched for stardust in populated areas, but only found the enigmatic micrometeorites in prehistoric sediment and remote areas, such as the blue ice of Antarctica, deserts, glaciers, and the vast expanse of outer space. Even though radar measurements confirmed that up to 100 metric tonnes of micrometeorites land on Earth every day, it was believed that finding stardust among the limitless mounds of dust here on Earth, was impossible.

This all changed in February 2015 with Jon Larsen's breakthrough discovery of the first urban micrometeorite, NMM 1, a slightly translucent barred olivine spherule that Jon found in the sludge of a Norwegian rain gutter. 

After seven years of searching — seven years of becoming an expert at identifying every possible type of earth- and human-made spherule — Jon Larsen, Norway's most celebrated jazz guitarist, made history and revolutionized the study of micrometeorites.

Since then, Jon's legendary partnership with Jan Braly Kihle, an accomplished mineralogist from the University of Oslo, has produced the world's first high resolution images of micrometeorites in breathtaking color. 

For some, Jon and Jan's captivating art serves as a constant reminder that no matter where we are, we are always surrounded by beauty. For others, Jon's discoveries provide the keys to unlocking the secrets of the universe and, perhaps, even life itself.