Jon Larsen
Jon Larsen has a crazily mixed background: jazz musician (guitar player, composer, record producer), painter (surrealism), mineralogist (micrometeorites). Since 2009 he has focused on project “STARDUST” in which, in 2015, he succeeded in developing a method for extracting micrometeorites and cosmic particles from urban dust, leading to the discovery of the first array of urban micrometeorites, an achievement that was rated among the 100 most important events in 2017 in Discovery Magazine. Today he studies micrometeorites as an associated senior researcher at the University of Oslo (UiO) from where he collaborates with a wide group of international experts in the field. He is a very popular lecturer, and a dynamo within the online international micrometeorite community, where he posts almost daily updates of new stardust photos and info on Facebook. The STARDUST project has been presented in The New York Times, The Economist, National Geographic, Washington Post, 1843 Magazine feature as well as hundreds of regional newspapers and magazines worldwide. His international recognition is based on close collaboration with mineralogist and eminent photographer Jan Kihle. The first paper on the discovery of the urban micrometeorites was published in Geology (http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/early/2016/12/05/G38352.1.abstract). He has since published four books about these exotic space rocks and *how* to find them. Each one deals with a different aspect of finding, identifying, and verifying micrometeorites as well as curating collections: “In Search of Stardust”, “Atlas of Micrometeorites”, “Star Hunter” (The story about the discovery of the urban micrometeorites) and “On The Trail of Stardust” (Illustrated field guide about tools, techniques, and methodology). Mr. Larsen has an asteroid named after him: 63788 Jonlarsen and a mineral: Jonlarsenite.