The 12th Koshien of Science (Oita tournament), a scientific competition for high school students in Oita prefecture, was held on 3rd November 2022 at Oita city. Naritaka Oshita from iTHEMS presented his talk on “Black Holes Veiled in Mystery” after the competition. More than 200 high school students from Oita prefecture attended. Oshita talked about the history of science, recent progress, and remaining mysteries of black holes. A student asked a unique question “What if we fall into a black hole? Can our consciousness be recovered from the hole?”. Another student asked, “How can it be possible to detect the signal from a ringing black hole?”. The audience enjoyed the stimulating talk and questions from the students.

During the competition, Oshita and an iTHEMS assistant Tomoko Iwanami observed the competition, where some students built their toy cars in each group and competed in a race.