Turning knowledge into silver? – the famous alchemists likely never dreamt of this, but it turns out to be possible!

From August 17th to 27th, the 17th Olympiad of Astronomy and Astrophysics took place in Vassouras, Brazil.
Hundreds of representatives from 53 countries participated in this prestigious event, the most renowned of its kind in the world. The Polish team won an impressive four silver medals. This brings great joy and pride to the Nicolaus Copernican Academy, which had the pleasure of being one of the sponsors of our Olympians.

The medalists are:
Dawid Chudzik and Andrzej Maroń from Staszic High School No. XIV in Warsaw,
Michał Jagodziński from High School No. XIII in Szczecin
Piotr Jędrzejczyk from Witkowski High School No. V in Kraków

Krzysztof Nadulicz from Anna z Sapiehów Jabłonowska High School No. II, in Białystok, was just 0.7 points short of a bronze medal – he finished the Olympiad with an honorable mention.

Participants faced 11 complex tasks, with 5 hours to solve them. The challenges included topics such as black holes, satellite flights, and galaxy clusters. In the practical part, competitors conducted observations using a Galileoscope and a star map, and they also had to demonstrate knowledge of the southern sky. Additionally,
they were given two data analysis problems to solve.

We warmly congratulate all the participants who dared to look to the sky and reach for the stars!

The Polish team along with their supervisors (from the Silesian Planetarium in Chorzów):
(from the left) Mr. Waldemar Ogłoza, Ms. Wiletta Ogłoza, Michał Jagodziński, Krzysztof Nadulicz, Piotr Jędrzejczyk, Dawid Chudzik, Andrzej Maroń, and Mr. Damian Jabłeka.

Polish Olympians: Michał Jagodziński, Piotr Jędrzejczyk, Krzysztof Nadulicz, Andrzej Maroń, Dawid Chudzik.

Preparation

At the Olympiad: opening ceremony

Polish silver medalists:
(from the left) Piotr Jędrzejczyk, Michał Jagodziński, Dawid Chudzik, Andrzej Maroń