Brazilian Student Scholars Excel in International Astronomy Contest

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazilian students obtained three medals and two honorable mentions at the 13th International Astronomy and Astrophysics Olympics (IOAA).

The event, held in Keszthely, Hungary, between August 2nd and 10th, was attended by 254 secondary school students from 47 countries — an all-time record number of delegations. The marathon event included theoretical, practical, and data analysis tests.

The three bronze medals were won by Raul Basilides Gomes (17), from Fortaleza, and by Giovanna Girotto (16) and Luã de Souza Santos (17), both from São Paulo. The honorable mentions were awarded to Bruna Junqueira de Almeida (16) and Lucas Shoji (16) — both from São Paulo.

This test had the highest ever number of girls, chosen from over 100,000 entrants to the level four competition of the Brazilian Astronomy and Astronautics Olympics (OBAA) in 2018. From this total, around 5,300 took three tests during the online selection stage.

A total of 150 students qualified for the in-person tests, and the top 30 students then went through two qualifying training sessions so that the team could be finally selected. They spent a further week of intensive training with astronomers in Vinhedo (São Paulo) during the first half of this year.

The delegation was led by astronomers Eugênio Reis from the National Observatory and Júlio César Klafke from Universidade Paulista (UNIP).

The 22nd edition of OBAA had a record number of entrants: 883,811 students from 9,957 public and private schools in all states of the country and the Federal District, in addition to the support of almost 62,000 teachers.