Young astronomy students from 48 different countries of the world recently participated in the International Olympiad in Astronomy and Astrophysics. It was an opportunity for pre-university students from various countries to meet and make friends with students with similar interest from all part of the world. In this IOAA, 221 participants from 48 teams came and spent 10 days together competing and interacting with each other, from 9 to 19 December 2016.
The first IOAA was held in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in November/December 2007. The subsequent annual meetings were held during August/September or October in Indonesia (2008), Iran (2009), China (2010), Poland (2011), Brazil (2012), Greece (2013), and then Romania in 2014.
Yash Mehta received an international silver medal for his performance at the Olympiad.
This year, the Indian contingent for the Olympiads had 10 students from all places like Andra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra (2), Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. Team India ranked second among all countries in the final medal tally, and separately ranked seventh in the team task. In total, the team received 8 medals and 4 other prizes.
The world rank one team was Russia, and world rank three was Iran. Other teams in top 10 were USA, China, UK, Romania, Slovakia, Estonia and Czech Republic