Judges have announced Romanian Irina Măgureanu as winner of the EU Galileo kids' art competition for Romania. The competition, run in countries across the EU for children aged 9 to 11, has a very special prize- a satellite in Galileo space program will be named after each winner and launched into space. Organized by the European Commission, children had to create a picture inspired by all things astronomical. Entrants were free to use whatever materials they wanted – the only rule was to include a big dollop of imagination.

As well as having her own satellite in space, Irina received a satellite shaped trophy at an award ceremony held today at the European Public Gallery within the European Commission headquarters in Bucharest. The judges, both artists and astronomers, were Alexandrina Hristov ( painter, musician and poet ), Adrian Şonka ( astronomer ) and Virgil Pop ( researcher, Romanian Space Agency ), who had to choose between  220 pictures in the competition.   Şonka gave the example of artists' impressions of newly discovered planets and stars as an example of science and art working together to capture people's imagination. The winning drawing was created on a graphic pad and features the Earth, satellites, rockets, a comet, the planet Mars and constellations- picture above. Check other winning drawings here. 

Galileo is an independent global satellite navigation system in Europe. The program will launch at least 27 satellites and, although working independently, the system will be interoperable with GPS systems (U.S.) and GLONASS (Russia) for some services. The program will have multiple applications, including transportation management and mobile networks. The first Galileo satellite launches were in 2011 and will continue until complete. The program is expected to deliver EUR 90 billion to the European economy over a period of 20 years

editor@romania-insider.com