Four Brazilian students won gold medals at the Latin American Astronomy Olympiad, held in Asunción, Paraguay. The competition, which began on the 1st of the month, closed on Monday the 9th. Three of the gold medalists come from Fortaleza, in the state of Ceará, and one comes from São Paulo. The winners are 16, 16, 17 and 19 years old.
The Brazilian team did not stop at individual results. One student from Ceará received an honorable mention, and the delegation was also recognized with the awards for best delegation and most sportsmanlike team, a sign of how the group performed beyond the scoreboard.
The olympiad combined several formats. Students sat individual and team theory exams, carried out assessments in a planetarium where they identified objects in the sky, and completed hands-on tasks involving telescopes and the building and launching of rockets. The team events were designed to encourage cooperation between students from different countries.
Getting to Asunción required passing a series of filters in Brazil. Secondary students needed at least 7 on the national OBA exam to qualify, while ninth-graders needed at least 9 on the same test. Qualified candidates then sat an in-person pre-selection exam and took part in a selective astronomy and astrophysics tournament, known as TSA. That process produced 45 trainees, with places reserved for girls, first-year students and public school pupils. From them, five students were chosen for the international olympiad, five for the Latin American one, and five were named alternates.
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