9th National Astronomy Olympiad 2022

National Round

Duration: May 22 – June 22

Category: Senior and Junior

Note: Please read carefully before you proceed to answer the questions.

 Use of Internet and books are permitted only for searching the necessary terms and concepts
which you feel would be useful for solving the problem.

 Asking these questions on internet forums is prohibited. You should write what you can extract
from the books and articles in the internet.

 Discussion between fellow participants is strictly prohibited. If found guilty, it will result in
disqualification.

 Remember there will be an oral examination shortly after you submit your work. The questions
will be based on your approach and solution to the problems that you submitted.

 You can use A4 size paper or normal/clean paper to write your handwritten solution. Write your
name, category, school/college information, question number and symbol number in every
page. While submitting your work, make sure to scan all the answer sheets you have used.
The answer sheet should be legible.
You may LaTeX or any other digital platform to write your solution.

 At the end of each sub question, in brackets are mentioned Juniors and Seniors.
If there is Junior and Senior in the bracket that implies the question is for both categories.
If there is only ‘Junior’ in the bracket, that implies the question is for Junior category only.
If there is only ‘Senior’ in the bracket, that implies the question is for Senior category only.

Pre closed camp is more about learning than competing, still it doesn’t mean you can take it
lightly and get through it.

If you have any queries, please contact us at [email protected] or call our office numbers
during office hours (10 am - 5pm)

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 9th National Astronomy Olympiad 2022
National Round
1. In the Dragon Ball Super franchise there are 12 active Universes (Universe 1, Universe 2, ….,
Universe 12). Suppose that each Universe is perfectly spherical. In the Universe 7, there are two
powerful cosmic beings Beerus and Champa - his twin brother. They are extremely angry with
each other and are looking each other to beat each other.

1.1 Beerus’ position projected at Earth is 31°𝑁, 41°E while Champa's position projected at Earth is
59°𝑁, 26°𝑊 . Fortunately, the Universe 7's equatorial plane is coincident to the equatorial plane
of Earth. So, how much far are they from each other?
Take the radius of Universe 7 as 5.3 × 10 Radius of Earth (𝑅 )
[ Yes, indeed that is a very small universe!]
( Junior and Senior ) (2.5 marks)
Below is an example of a point D from sphere c being projected at point E of sphere d

1.2 Suppose Champa goes to sleep for 3 hours and at the same time Beerus has found his location.
Now Beerus flies by taking the shortest route towards Champa's location at a speed of
5.8 × 10 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑡𝑠. Will he be able to attack Champa while Champa is still sleeping? Also,
determine the minimum speed Beerus needs to fly with so that he could reach at Champa's place
atleast 30 minutes before he wakes up.
(Junior and Senior) (2.5 marks)

1.3 If Champa's position projected at Earth is 31°N, 41°W and Beerus flies along the 31°N arc to
attack Champa. Suppose you are at 59°N, 26°W and have a very powerful telescope which
follows the path of Beerus. Will Beerus ever be out of sight from your telescope? Present your
argument.
(Senior)(2.5marks)

1.4 Suppose the Universal equatorial plane makes an angle of 90° with the Earth's equatorial plane.
If Beerus has a Universal coordinate of (𝑈 , 𝑈 ) which when projected to the Earth's coordinate
system gives the value:
 27°𝑁, 18°𝑊
 28°𝑆, 18°𝐸
 28°𝑁, 45°𝑊

If one can deduct the value of (𝑈 , 𝑈 ), what would be the value of (𝑈 , 𝑈 ) in both cases?
(Senior and Junior) (2.5 marks)

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 9th National Astronomy Olympiad 2022
National Round
Bonus question:
Can you deduct a certain code from the above question's data?
I know it is irrational to ask especially in Astronomy Olympiad but just let's for once transcend
Olympiad and focus on fun

Suggestions:
Have your Euclidean plane (2-dimensional plane) trigonometry basics covered
Move on to basics of spherical geometry.

2. The Gunn-Peterson (G-P) trough is a feature in the spectrum of a (background) source near the
Lyman α line, caused by a high density of intervening, neutral hydrogen (HI) in Intergalactic
Medium. The trough is characterized by suppression of electromagnetic emission from the
quasar at wavelengths less than that of the Lyman-alpha line at the redshift of the emitted light
as shown below where G-P trough was identified.
For a matter-dominated universe the evolution of the scale factor in the Friedmann–Lemaître–
Robertson–Walker metric is easily obtained solving the Friedmann equations:
a ∝ (t)2/3

2.1 Find the scale factor ‘a’ when the light was emitted. What does this value mean?
(Senior & Junior) (3 marks)

2.2 With expansion of our universe, Cosmic Microwave Background photons have redshifted to be
precise by a factor of 1090, causing decrease in energy. The color temperature ‘‘T’’ is a function
of redshift “z”. Calculate the temperature of the universe then.
(Senior & Junior) (4 marks)

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 9th National Astronomy Olympiad 2022
National Round

2.3 Predict the nature of the universe, the dominant frequency and wavelength.
(Senior & Junior) (3 marks)

Participants are required to show detailed full calculation.

Suggested reading: Doppler effect, Gunn-Peterson trough, Friedmann Equations Newtonian,
CMB, Hubble’s Law, Scale factor, Wein’s Displacement Law

3. Respond to these following questions mentioned below

3.1 What is the galactic coordinate system? Describe in brief.
What is the angular separation between celestial equator and ecliptic at the point of their
intersection? Identify the lines drawn in the image.
(Senior) (2.5 marks)
https://tinyurl.com/5b5jkhzf

3.2 What is the equatorial coordinate system? Describe in brief.

What is the angular separation between celestial equator and ecliptic at the point of their
intersection? Identify the lines drawn in the image.
(Junior) (2.5 marks)
https://tinyurl.com/5b5jkhzf

3.3 How many constellations were listed by Ptolemy in his book Almagest in the 2nd century?
Draw the outline of any ten constellations listed by Ptolemy as defined by the IAU system and
label their alpha and beta stars according to the Bayer Designation.
(Junior and Senior) (2.5 marks)

3.4 The absolute magnitude of a star is M = −2 and the apparent magnitude m = 8. What is the
distance of the star?
(Junior) (2.5 marks)

3.5 Consider a tidally locked Earth-sized planet (radius = 6500 km) with surface albedo (α=0.40)
revolving around the sun at the distance of 2 AU from the Sun. What is the apparent
magnitude of the planet as seen from the earth during its opposition? Consider the luminosity
and apparent magnitude of the Sun to be 3.8×1026 and -26.74 respectively.
(Senior) (2.5 marks)

3.6 You and Mr. Beast are playing a game known as “Where am I?”. The prize if you complete all
the task assigned by Mr. Beast is a whopping 100 thousand dollars. You absolutely need that
as you are currently drowned in a huge student loan. Now, the games starts. You are blind
folded and dropped to a certain unknown location in Earth. You have absolutely no idea
where you are. Mr. Beast gives you two images which replicate the night sky of that place at
a certain date and he mentions that “If the time in your location is ‘x’ hour then the time in
Greenwich, England is equal to (x + 10) hour “

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 9th National Astronomy Olympiad 2022
National Round
Both of the images are taken at the same place and same day but at different times, Image 1
is taken earlier than Image 2.
Image 1:
https://tinyurl.com/bdns895z
Image 2:
https://tinyurl.com/2e4kwjwp

Your challenge is:

 Find the location of the un-known place where you are currently. Show how you arrived to
your answer.
 Label the cardinal points in the Image 1 and give your reasoning as to how you arrived to your
answer?
 Draw the path which the sun follows in Image 1?
(Junior and Senior) (2.5 marks)

Suggestions:
Learn about the night sky and constellations via Stellarium.

4. Suppose Sir Isaac Newton travels to Universe 6 (mentioned in problem 1). After being there
for few months he discovers that the law of Physics is slightly different than our Universe.
After some research he formulates a law of gravitation for Universe 6 as "any particle of
matter in the universe 6 attracts any other with a force varying directly as the product of the
square of the masses and inversely as the cube of the distance between them".

4.1 Write a proper mathematical expression for the force of gravity on the basis of the above law.
(Junior) (1 mark)

4.2 Isaac Newton is currently in a uniform spherical planet named as Asgard, the host star around
which Asgard revolves is Krypton.

If you are given that the distance between Asgard and Krypton is 3 × 10 𝑚. The mass of Asgard
is 8 × 10 𝑘𝑔 and the mass of Krypton is 3 × 10 𝑘𝑔. If the Force of gravitation between
Asgard and Krypton was found to be 2 × 10 𝑁𝑒𝑤𝑡𝑜𝑛𝑠. What must be the Universal
gravitational constant in Universe 6? (Junior) (1.5 marks)

4.3 Newton is very interested to go on a space view of Asgard. He has built a spaceship with the
intention of orbiting Asgard. What must be the velocity of his spaceship if he wants to stay in a
circular orbit at a height of 1000km above the surface?
It also turns out that,
Newton has formulated another law in Universe 6, which is "The square of acceleration of an
object as produced by a net force is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force, in
the same direction as the net force, and inversely proportional to the square of mass of the
object"

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 9th National Astronomy Olympiad 2022
National Round
Use the fact: The acceleration in a uniform circular motion is, 𝑎 = where 𝑣 is the linear
velocity and 𝑟 is the radius of the circular path and in space the centripetal force- the force that
keeps the body in a circular path- is given by the force of gravity.
(Junior) (6 marks)

4.4 What would be the value of acceleration due to gravity at the height of 1000km above the
surface of Asgard?
(Junior) (1.5 marks)

Suggestions:
Cover the basics of the following topics:
1-d motion, Newton’s law of motion, Circular motion, Gravitation

Reference channels: Khan Academy and Vedantu 9 and 10.

5. Two different star clusters are observed located in different directions from us. In the direction of
the first cluster, the interstellar extinction is 0.0010m/pc, in the second direction 0.0020m/pc.
Determine which of the clusters is closer and at what time if in the first one there is a Cepheid of
type δ Cep with a period of 3 days and a visible stellar magnitude 12m, the second also contains a
Cepheid of the δ Cep type, but with a period of 25 days and apparent magnitude 10m.

Cepheids of the δ Cep type are characterized by the dependence between absolute magnitude
(Mv) and period (P): Mv = -1.01 + 2.87 * log P.

Suggested reading: An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics: Bradley W. Carroll Dale A. Ostlie,

Interstellar Extinction and Reddening, Cepheid Variables
(Senior) (10 marks)

**All the best**