IOAA 2026 preparation

Navigate the sky, one problem at a time.

Embark on your journey to explore what's beyond the sky!

Problem sets by topic

The seven areas of the IOAA syllabus, plus the data analysis round.

Celestial sphere, coordinate systems, time and rising/setting.

Kepler's laws, n-body problem, orbital transfers.

Magnitudes, blackbody radiation, stellar structure and evolution.

Planets, moons, tides, atmospheres and exoplanets.

Telescopes, resolution, detectors, photometry and spectroscopy, Bessel function for Rayleigh's criterion!

Milky Way structure, rotation curves, galaxies and dark matter.

Expansion, redshift, the CMB and the fate of the Universe. - Personal favorite

Tables, graphs, fits and uncertainties from past IOAA data rounds.

Interactive

NASA surface imagery wrapped onto every world, each with its true axial tilt. Drag to look around, scroll to zoom, tap a planet for its numbers.

Loading the Solar System…

Pick a planet to see its distance and orbital period.

Surface maps built from NASA imagery, courtesy of Solar System Scope (CC BY 4.0).

Past papers with full solutions from IOAA, BAAO, USAAAO, INAO and more.

Textbooks, lecture notes and tools mapped to the topics they cover, so you know what to open next for the Prep!