Astro-Artist of the Month - May 2013: Jon Lomberg

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May 06

2013

by Thilina Heenatigala

Published: Monday, May 06 2013 16:30

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Jon Lomberg is one of the world's leading artists inspired by science, whose work has been seen by over one billion people worldwide. His images range from fine art and museum displays to computer graphics for the media. He is an Emmy Award winning television art director ("COSMOS"), a muralist for the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum (Portrait of the Milky Way), and an award winning science reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s program IDEAS. He designed the astronomical animation for the Warner Brothers film "CONTACT", based on Carl Sagan's novel, for which Lomberg also painted the cover image of Planet Earth in the Galaxy.

The artist has produced some of the most unusual, durable, and far-flung images ever created by the human species. In 1977 he was Design Director for NASA's famous Voyager Interstellar Record, sent beyond the solar system on robot spacecraft. His cover art for that project, predicted to last for over a thousand million years, may be the longest lived piece of human art ever created.

Four art objects Jon Lomberg helped design are now on Mars: 3 sundials aboard the Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity rovers; and the DVD Visions of Mars aboard the Phoenix lander.

Jon Lomberg created the Galaxy Garden in Kona, Hawaii, the world’s first and only large-scale, explorable model of the Milky Way Galaxy, mapped with great precision, and realized as a flower garden.

Kite aerial photography by Heidy and PIerre Lesage
 

Mr. Lomberg is also a lecturer and stargazing guide, who has frequently presented programs for some of the worlds leading resorts and cruise lines. His engaging style stimulates the imagination of his audience, and makes hard concepts easy to understand.

In 1998, on the occasion of his 50th birthday, the Jon Lomberg was singularly honored by the International Astronautical Union, who officially designated an asteroid near Mars, previously called 6446 1990QL, as Asteroid Lomberg, in recognition of his many achievements in the field of science communication.

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