The Indian team wins at the 15th International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA) 2022 held in Kutaisi, Georgia, from 14 to 21 August, 2022 with three gold and two silver medals.
There were 209 students from 37 main and 6 guest teams participating in this year’s IOAA. In addition, 24 students from 6 countries participated in the online mode. In the medals tally, India was placed jointly in the third position along with Singapore, behind Iran’s official team which won five gold medals and the guest team with 4 Gold and 1 Silver medals.
In all, 28 Gold, 38 Silver and 55 Bronze medals were awarded at the IOAA this year. Raghav Goyal from India’s team who hails from Chandigarh, won a special prize for the best solution to the most challenging theoretical question.
This year’s competition was originally was to be held in Kyiv, Ukraine. But was shifted to Kutaisi, Georgia in March 2022 due to the war in Ukraine.
The team was trained by the Astronomy Olympiad Cell at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE) along with teachers and mentors from across the country. Prof. Aniket Sule, faculty at the HBCSE, has been elected president of the international body of IOAA for five year term in this year’s event. For the last five years, Prof Sule has served as the Generally Secretary of the IOAA.
The team was accompanied by two leaders Prof. Sarita Vig (Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram), Prof. Ajit Mohan Srivastava (Institute of Physics, Bhubaneshwar) and two scientific observers Dr. Shriharsh Tendulkar (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai) and Tejas Shah (Father Agnel Multipurpose School and Junior College, Navi Mumbai). Dr Tendulkar was himself a Gold Medalist at the International Astronomy Olympiad in 2002 and 2003. He was the overall topper in the latter.
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