Day 4

Today, participants of the Open World Astronomy Olympiad tackled the problems of the practical round. This stage required not only theoretical knowledge but also research skills. All tasks were based on real scientific studies, giving the students a unique opportunity to test themselves in solving current scientific problems and potentially take steps toward their future academic work in astronomy.

The practical round covered a wide range of topics, from lunar eclipses to the study of white dwarfs — the remnants of stellar evolution.  The participants also had to analyze the spatial distribution of supernova explosion and detect deviations from a uniform distribution. Investigating the causes and characteristics of such deviations is a relevant scientific problem.

In the afternoon, the Olympiad participants visited the laboratory complex of the Sirius University of Science and Technology, the largest of its kind in Russia in the life sciences.

A participant from Thailand, Phuphaphakdee Pongpanus, was delighted with the tour of the Sirius University laboratories. He believes that equipping an educational institution with real laboratories is an excellent idea, as it allows students to attend lectures and participate in actual development work, gaining valuable practical experience.

"We are already halfway through the Olympiad, as the theoretical and practical rounds are over. Both rounds were challenging. However, the practical round problems required deeper data analysis. You could say we were working on real research tasks, which made this stage particularly fascinating for me," he shared.