India performed well at the 17th IOAA 2024 held in Rio de Janeiro, Vassouras, Brazil,
from 17 to 26 August, 2024
Mumbai: India performed well at the 17th International Olympiad on Astronomy and
Astrophysics (IOAA) 2024 held in Rio de Janeiro, Vassouras, Brazil, from 17 to 26 August, 2024.
All five Indian students bagged medals – 1 gold and 4 silver medals:
●
Daksh Tayalia (GOLD) from Bengaluru, Karnataka
● Aayush Kuthari (SILVER) from Pune, Maharashtra
●
Banibrata Majee (SILVER) from Hyderabad, Telangana
●
Panini (SILVER) from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh
●
Sanidhya Saraf (SILVER) from Pune, Maharashtra
The team was accompanied by two leaders: Prof. Bhargav Vaidya (IIT Indore), Mr. Pritesh Ranadive
(HBCSE-TIFR, Mumbai), and four Scientific Observers: Prof. Arnab Bhattacharya (HBCSE-TIFR, Mumbai),
Dr. Vaibhav Pant (ARIES, Nainital), Dr. Akshat Singhal (HBCSE-TIFR, Mumbai), and Mr. Yash Mehta (Open
AI). Prof. Aniket Sule (HBCSE-TIFR) attended the event as the current president of IOAA.
There were 232 students from 52 countries participating in this year’s IOAA. In the medals tally India was
placed in the eighth position, behind Iran (5 golds), USA (3 golds), Romania, South Korea, Singapore,
Slovenia and Canada (2 golds each).
The IOAA competition consists of three components — theory (50%), observation (25%) and data analysis
(25%). In addition there is a team competition of mixed-nation teams. This year’s theoretical component had
interesting problems on various topics like understanding of the sundial, estimating the mass of a galaxy
cluster, calculating highly elliptical orbits of asteroids, physics of white dwarfs, accretion discs of black holes,
etc. One task focused on the solar eclipse of 1919 when data was taken from Sobral, Brazil (and Africa) to
confirm the predictions of the general theory of relativity for the first time. Another task asked students to
compute the properties of the orbit of a satellite from its ground track images. One of the data analysis tasks
was about the cross-calibration of two large optical surveys, while the other was on the proof of Shapley’s
hypothesis. The observational component used the Galileo-scope (a small refracting telescope) to measure
the coordinates of an artificial star and mark it on a star chart.
India will be hosting the next IOAA in August 2025 at Mumbai, and the event will be organised by
HBCSE. The Centre Director, HBCSE, Prof. Arnab Bhattacharya received the IOAA flag from the present
hosts, and welcomed all to come to Mumbai next year. This was the last of the senior science Olympiads this
year. Of the 18 students overall, 5 received gold medals, 12 silver, and 1 bronze.
