YATS tour flagged off

A week-long tour of 20
winners of Young Astronomer Talent Search (YATS) 2014-15 to ISRO Space Applications Centre (SAC) at Ahmedabad was flagged off here.
Flagging off the journey yesterday, Odisha Chief Secretary Gokul Chandra Pati commended Tata Steel and Pathani Samanata Planetarium for organising YATS and congratulated the young students for getting selected in the competition, a Tata Steel release said.
With a mission to popularise the contributions of the legendary Pathani Samanta in the field of astronomy while identifying and encouraging young talents in astronomy and space science among school students of the state, Tata Steel, in collaboration with Pathani Samanta Planetarium, has been organising YATS programme since 2007, it said.

To provide world class exposure to budding scientific talents of Odisha, every year 20 winners of YATS, selected through multi-level tests from amongst students from class VIII- to X across the state, are sent on a visit to different centres of ISRO.
The young students will not only get first-hand experience of visiting famous ISRO Space Applications Centre but also have opportunities to visit Science City at Ahemdabad and interact with senior scientists at both the places.
The team, comprising 15 boys and 5 girls from across the state including places like Kandhamal, Jharsuguda and Keonjhar, accompanied by guide teachers from their schools, were be led by Subhendu Patnaik, Deputy Director of the Planetarium during this week long tour to Ahemdabad up to May 15, accompanied by one officer from Tata Steel.

These top 20 students were selected from around 800 school children across the state participating in YATS competition in three stages at eight different zones -- Belpahar, Keonjhar, Balasore, Joda, Jeypore, Bhubaneswar, Berhampur and Jeypore, the release said.