TEHRAN – The 15th Asian-Pacific Astronomy Olympiads (APAO 2019) kicked off in Tehran on Sunday, ISNA news agency reported.

The Asian-Pacific Astronomy Olympiad is a regional annual astronomy event for high school students from Asian countries. It provides a program for teams of students that did not qualify for the International Astronomy Olympiad (IAO) and the APAO follows the IAO on the calendar. The APAO was founded on April 25, 2005.

Teams of Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Korea, Nepal, Pakistan, Asian part of Russia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam took part in the APAOs.
The APAO consists of three tests including, theory, data analysis and observation, the Olympiad’s secretary Seyed Amir Mousavi said.

In the theory test, participants are challenged by solving a number of numerical tests, in the data analysis test, students face a set of real data and practice real data analysis, while the observation test is a practical test that assesses participants' observation skills overnight, he explained.

He went on to say that after Michael G. Gavrilov, Founding Chairman of the IAO paid a visit to Iran, it was decided to hold the 2019 APAO in Tehran.

A team of national medalists of IAO, along with Gavrilov, are responsible to set the questions, with students from China, Russia and Iran taking apart, he stated, noting, “On the sidelines of the event, we also plan to introduce Tehran's cultural and tourist attractions to participants, so they visit various sights in Tehran during their stay.”

“I believe that the competitive aspect of the Olympiads is not the main part of it, what matters most is the interaction and empathy between students of different nationalities,” he highlighted.

“We need to be more active in international conferences and events to maintain our place as a leading country in the field of education,” he concluded.
The event will close on December 23.

The last edition of APAO was held in Lijiang, China on November 24-December 2, 2018.

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