Stories
Indian Students Shine with 4 Gold and 1 Silver at Astronomy Olympiad 2026
- •India secured four gold medals and one silver medal at the 19th International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics in Hanoi, Vietnam.
- •Pranjal Dixit, Sumant Gupta, Akshat Srivastava, and Arnav Sehrawat won gold, while Harshil Amitkumar Patel secured silver.
- •India finished joint third in the medal tally along with host country Vietnam, behind Iran and South Korea.
- •For the first time since 1989, all 24 Indian participants across five senior-level science Olympiads won either a gold or silver medal.
- •The competition featured 307 students from 64 countries and tested participants in theory, observation, and data analysis.
Key Questions Answered
India won a total of five medals at the 19th International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA) 2026 in Hanoi, Vietnam, consisting of four gold medals and one silver medal. This brilliant 100 per cent podium finish placed India joint third in the medal tally.
The 2026 IOAA competition tested students across three major components: theory, observation, and data analysis. Theory accounted for 50 percent of the total score, while observation and data analysis contributed 25 percent each.
For the first time since India began participating in international Olympiads in 1989, every single student who competed across all five senior-level science Olympiads—Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Astronomy—won either a gold or silver medal in the same year.
