The Bulgarian team is returning home with four medals from the Youth International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA), held in the Romanian city of Piatra Neamț, the Ministry of Education and Science announced.
The competition brought together 108 students from 19 countries, who tested their knowledge and skills in two rounds – theoretical and observational. The theoretical round featured nine problems on topics such as orbital mechanics, spherical trigonometry, eclipses, stellar astronomy, and exoplanets. In the observational round, participants demonstrated their ability to read star charts and operate telescopes.

Silver medals went to ninth graders Marina Marinova from Ruse and Lev Belenkiy from Varna, both students at mathematics high schools, as well as Viktor Kozhukharov, an eighth grader from the National High School of Mathematics and Science in Sofia.

A bronze medal was awarded to Ognyan Dobrev, a ninth grader from the mathematics high school in Varna.

The team was led by Eva Bozhurova from the Nikolaus Copernicus Public Astronomical Observatory and Planetarium in Varna and Alexander Kurtenkov from the Institute of Astronomy with the National Astronomical Observatory at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.


Editor: Diana Tsankova
Posted in English by E. Radkova