IOAA 2017 Newsletter Vol.4

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Vol.4

IOAA 2017 Newsletter

16th November 2017

PROMOTING 'ASTRONOMY' ON A WORLD SCALE THE VISION OF IOAA continued on page 6

Photo By Thairat

HIGHLIGHTS!!

HIGHLIGHTS!!

Contestants were given a day

off to visit Phuket Botanical Garden and Dolphins Bay Phuket, while team leaders grade analysis exams.

READ MORE

HIGHLIGHTS!!

What are Gravitational Waves?

READ MORE

INTERVIEWS

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he “Pleiades Team” also took a moment to gather the thoughts and expectations of each participant as the excitement begins to stir just a few hours before the competition.

Let’s see what the participants had to say READ MORE

NOV. 14TH NIGHT OBSERVATION EXAM POSTPONED TO NOV. 16TH DUE TO CLOUDY SKIES As a world-class tourist destination, Phuket holds to a very high standard of service. Therefore, the event organizer team chose Phuket as the exam venue for the IOAA 2017. This is the second time Thailand has hosted the event, the first time was in Chiang Mai in 2007.

Even though the event organizer team have done their best in arranging and planning the event, problems are often still likely to take place. For instance, two countries originially confirmed to join the competition, did not make the event causing the number of joining countries to be only 44 rather than the originally announced 46.

For instance, the observation exam at Promthep Cape last night (November 14th, 2017) was unable to take place due to the rain. Therefore, the observation exam committee has shifted the exam schedule to the night of November 16th, 2017 instead. We hope there won't be any further problems. Looking forward to seeing you there!

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Vol.4

IOAA 2017 Newsletter

16th November 2017

Student Program Details

Leader Program Details Date

Time

Programme

Venue

Phuket Marriott Thursday 06:30 - 09.00 Breakfast 16 November 09:00 - 12.00 IBM3.Team competition and Resort & Spa, Merlin Beach daytime observation discussion 12:30 - 13:30 Lunch 13:30 - 17:00 IBM3.Team competition and daytime observation translation 18:00 - 19:00 Dinner 22:00 Distribution of Theory answer sheets Friday 17 November

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06:30 - 09:00 08:30 - 21.00 17:30 - 19:00

Breakfast Excursion Dinner

Phang Nga Bay

By Pass Sea food restaurant

Contestants were given a day off to visit Phuket Botanical Garden and Dolphins Bay Phuket, while team leaders grade analysis exams IOAA 2017 has come to Day 4 (November 15th, 2017). It is a day for team leaders and scoring committee to do their grading to the exam papers taken yesterday morning (November 14th, 2017) at Phuket Marriott Resort & Spa, Merlin Beach. While the students have been on excursion to Phuket Botanic Garden and Dolphins Bay Phuket in Chalong, Phuket.

Inside the Botanic Garden, students can learn about Thai herbal plants and variety of flower and plants species. There are different zones to learn different topics including Thai herbal, fruit, sufficiency economy farm, fragrant plants, orchid, colorful pineapple, fern, water plants, Cactus, Lotus, Japanese Garden, English Garden, Bali Garden, stale plant garden, creeper plant garden, palm garden, rain forest, and winter garden.

While at the Dolphin Bay Phuket, students have enjoyed the droplines and seals show, which are all well-trained. They are very talented in many things such as dancing, playing with ball, jumping, and many others, totally 1-hour performance.

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By http://earthsky.org/space/what-aregravitational-waves

What are Gravitational Waves? distorts the space around it, leaving our comparatively tiny planet following as “straight” a path as it can, but in a curved space.

This is why it ends up orbiting the sun.

O

n Monday (October 16, 2017), LIGO and Virgo announced the first detection of gravitational waves produced by colliding neutron stars. But what are gravitational waves? Here’s an explanation by GrenIreson, Nottingham Trent University To best understand the phenomenon, let’s go back in time a few hundred years.

In 1687 when Isaac Newton published his PhilosophiæNaturalis Principia Mathematica, he thought of the gravitational force as an attractive force between two masses – be it the Earth and the moon or two peas on a table top. However the nature of how this force was transmitted was less well understood at the time. Indeed the law of gravitation itself was not tested until British scientist Henry Cavendish did so in 1798, while measuring the density of the Earth.

Space-time can be considered to be the fabric of the universe. That means everything that moves, moves through it. In this model, anything with mass distorts the space-time fabric. The larger the mass, the larger the distortion. And since every moving object moves through space-time, it will also follow the distortions caused by objects with big mass.

One way of thinking about this is to consider two children, one heavier than the other, playing on a trampoline. If we treat the surface of the trampoline as the fabric then the more massive child distorts the fabric more than the other. If one child places a ball near the feet of the other then the ball will roll towards, or follow the distortion, towards their feet. Similarly, when the Earth goes around the sun, the huge mass of the sun

If we accept this simple analogy, then we have the basics of gravity. Moving on to gravitational waves is a small, but very important, step. Let one of the children on the trampoline pull a heavy object across the surface. This creates a ripple on the surface that can be observed. Another way to visualize it is to consider moving your hand through water. The ripples or waves spread out from their origin but quickly decay.

Any object moving through the spacetime fabric causes waves or ripples in that fabric. Unfortunately, these ripples also disappear fairly quickly and only the most violent events produce distortions big enough to be detected on Earth. To put this into perspective, two colliding black holes each with a mass of ten times that of our sun would result in a wave causing a distortion of 1% of the diameter of an atom when it reaches the Earth. On this scale, the distortion is of the order of a 0.0000000000001m change in the diameter of the Earthcompared to the 1m change due to a tidal bulge.

Fast forward to 1916, when Einstein presented physicists with a new way of thinking about space, time and gravity.

Building on work published in 1905, the theory of general relativity tied together that what we commonly consider to be separate entities – space and time – into what is now called “space-time”.

Trampolines: fun and educational. Image via cotrim/pixabay.

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What can gravitational waves be used for?

Given that these ripples are so small and so difficult to detect, why have we made such an effort to find them – and why should we care about spotting them? Two immediate reasons come to mind. One is that they were predicted by Einstein 100 years ago. Confirming the existence of gravitational waves therefore provides further strong observational support for his general theory of relativity.

In addition, the confirmation could open up new areas of physics such as gravitational-wave astronomy. By studying gravitational waves from the processes that emitted them – in this case two merging black holes – we could see intimate details of violent events in the cosmos.

However, to make the most of such astronomy, it is best to place the detector in space. The Earthbased LIGO managed to catch gravitational waves using laser interferometry. This technique works by splitting a laser beam in two perpendicular directions and sending each down a long vacuum tunnel. The two paths are then reflected back by mirrors to the point they started at, where a detector is placed. If the waves are disturbed by gravitational waves on their way, the recombined beams would be different from the original.

However, space-based interferometers planned for the next decade will use laser arms spanning up to a million kilometers.

Now that we know that they exist, the hope is that gravitational waves could open up the door to answering some of the biggest mysteries in science, such as what the majority of the universe is made of. Only 5% of the universe is ordinary matter with 27% being dark matter and the remaining 68% being dark energy, with the latter two being called “dark” as we don’t understand what they are. Gravitational waves may now provide a tool with which to probe these mysteries in a similar way that X-rays and MRI have allowed us to probe the human body.

LISA, a planned space-based laser interferometer, could study astrophysical sources of gravitational waves in detail. Image via NASA.

Computer simulation of two merging black holes producing gravitational waves. Image via Werner Benger.

Gren Ireson, Professor of Science Education, Research Coordinator within the School of Education, Nottingham Trent University This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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PROMOTING 'ASTRONOMY' ON A WORLD SCALE THE VISION OF IOAA Before being elected as the President of the IOAA in just the previous year, I used to have the role as secretary and before that I was a team leader for the Poland team.

M

y job as the secretary was to coordinate preparations for the competition whether that involves contacting the different departments involved or just solving general problems and situations that occur in the planning process.

In organizing the IOAA, we are focused on creating a competition that challenges the contestants at the highest level of competition possible. It is important that the examinations are set at an international standard that is above the contestant’s previous experience in national competitions. We also believed that through this competition we are able to promote astronomy on an international scale and ultimately create a greater and more widespread interest in astronomy in schools all over the world.

The IOAA is a very big competition hosting participants from 45 different countries and therefore there is a lot that goes on in preparations whether it be the schedules, examinations, accommodations etc. Therefore, as the event organizers we know that there are always going to be various problems arise throughout the competitions. So, in the event that we do have a situation, it is very important that we come together and discuss what the problem is at hand and look for a solution that solves the issue based on its cause “Sometimes, if we take only a glance at the problem we may only see the surface of the

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Dr. Gregorz Stachowski

PRESIDENT OF THE IOAA situation, but if we take time to look at the details we can discuss and decide on a solid solution. Also, we are always trying to improve from year to year by taking consideration of different issues that have arisen in the past and making sure that the do not happen again.” said the President of the IOAA 10 years ago, I had my first opportunity to come to Thailand in the IOAA 2007 and I really had a great time in that year. Since then I would often think when I would get the opportunity to come back and now I’m glad that I have finally got this opportunity again. Thailand is really a beautiful country and the people here are very friendly and welcoming.

Also, I really like Phuket, it’s a very beautiful province and unfortunately, I have not yet had much opportunity to go out see much of it since I have been so busy with organizing the event.

Joao Galvao Contestant from Portugal

I

really love Phuket Botanic Garden. It is very big and many greens inside, I really love green areas. I also love the Dolphin park. That was the best dolphins show I have ever seen. Overall, I love all the activities today.

For exam, I am not worried about it because I have prepared myself very well and have tried using telescopes in Portugal many times before. The most important thing is that I really enjoy all the experiences I have learned from this trip.

I

Pavel Arkhipov Contestant from Russia

am very excited with the Botanic garden here. For others, plants might be a boring thing, but for me it is very interesting. Anyway, for the exam, I will use what I have learned with all my best in the exam as it is the most important thing for me.

Panupong Phoompuang Contestant from Thailand Mariia Smyk Contestant from Ukraine

T

he dolphin show today was amazing. They can eat food from people’s hand when they feed them. That's really nice. By the way, I am not worried about the exam, because so far, I have prepared myself enough for that. Now it's time for me to do my best from what I have learned.

I

am very confident for competition this time. I have prepared myself very hard on this, so I strongly believe that I will get any of the medals.

Another thing that I love about this event is that I have made a lot of new friends from all across the globe.

Igor Medvedev Contestant from Serbia

F

or me, I like the dolphin park more than the botanic garden. It's hard to find dolphin show. After the excursion, I will relax and have myself ready for the most important exam tomorrow. I got medals from last year, so for this year I also want medals again, actually the higher one.

I

Hagan Hensley Contestant from USA

am really satisfied with this exam this time because the questions were new for me. So, I feel very excited. It is a new challenging. But, I am happy with what I have done in the exam, and hope the committee will be happy either.

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