New Delhi : Gopalchetty Brahma, BTech 3rd year student of Aerospace Engineering, Lovely Professional University has won the ‘Silver Honour’ award at the International Astronomy and Astrophysics Competition (IAAC-2020). As the one of the world’s biggest online astronomy competitions, IAAC provides students with the opportunity to unleash their creativity and hone their skills in the fields of astronomy and astrophysics. A plethora of students from countries such as US, UK, Russia, Canada, Germany, China, France, Italy, Spain, South Korea and New Zealand amongst others participated in this competition.

Passionate about this subject, Gopalchetty Brahma has been an active participant in various competitions since school days. The first milestone came during Class 12, when he received the Finalist Award of Young Scientist India 2017-18) organized by “Space Kids India”. Another notable achievement was the participation in a national level festival called “National Student’s Space Challenge (NSSC-2018)” organized by IIT Kharagpur in collaboration with ISRO. Brahma presented his idea “The Fate and Face of the Universe: Dark Energy and Dark Matter” and was awarded “Certificate of Appreciation” from IIT Kharagpur.

“IAAC is one of the toughest astronomy competitions in the world and it was not possible to win this prestigious and international competition without my mentor. I would like to thank Dr. Amit Kumar Thakur, Associate Professor and COD of Aerospace Engineering in Lovely Professional University for his guidance and support to help me achieve this goal,” says Gopalchetty Brahma.

Mr. Stefan Amberg, Public Relations Manager, IAAC said: ‘’IAAC uses cutting-edge technology and the global connection to make the competition possible. In fact, society is in need of capable scientists and engineers, who develop, shape and maintain the innovations of the future and we believe that this competition will bring out a new crop of young experts.’’