At just 15 years old, Luciana Ortiz Nolasco has done something that even seasoned developers struggle to accomplish, she’s written an astronomy-focused app that combines education, community, and gamification into one cohesive digital experience. Her project, BreakDownCosmic, earned her a spot among the 2025 Swift Student Challenge winners, a program hosted by Apple to celebrate young developers who use Swift to bring creative ideas to life. What sets Ortiz Nolasco’s story apart isn’t just her age or her technical ability, it’s the deeply personal journey that inspired her to create an app with the potential to connect aspiring astronomers across the globe.
Luciana’s interest in astronomy started when she received a telescope for her 11th birthday. Living in Nuevo León, an industrialized region of northern Mexico, she quickly discovered a challenge many urban stargazers face: light pollution and smog that obscure the night sky.
Rather than give up on her new hobby, she looked for ways to deepen her understanding. She joined the Astronomical Society of Nuevo León, which gave her access to darker skies, rural observation trips, and a like-minded community. These weekends under the stars weren’t just inspiring, they were formative. Through these experiences, Luciana realized that access to astronomy shouldn’t depend on where you live or what resources you have.
That philosophy became the foundation of BreakDownCosmic.
BreakDownCosmic is more than just a calendar for upcoming meteor showers or lunar eclipses. It’s a comprehensive astronomy hub built with Apple’s Swift programming language. Designed to make astronomy engaging and inclusive, the app allows users to:
Each element of the app was carefully designed to support a simple goal: help people learn about the universe in a way that feels accessible and exciting, regardless of age or background.
Luciana chose Swift and Apple’s Xcode tools to build BreakDownCosmic because of their intuitive, beginner-friendly interfaces. In fact, she credits Swift’s error correction features for making the learning process smoother than expected.
“Swift is very easy to learn,” she explained. “Most of the time, it would correct me if I had an error. I didn’t have to spend hours looking through my code just to find a small mistake.”
Despite her young age and relatively recent entry into coding, she quickly gained a solid understanding of how to bring her ideas to life. The result is an app that combines technical precision with a personal, emotional connection to the stars.
One of the most powerful features of BreakDownCosmic is how it bridges the gap between global events and personal experience. By allowing users to localize celestial events and interact with others who are viewing the same event from different parts of the world, the app fosters a sense of shared wonder.
For Luciana, that community aspect is vital. Growing up, she didn’t always have friends who shared her interest in astronomy. Through this app, she hopes to build the kind of supportive community she found later through the Astronomical Society, only on a much larger, international scale.
“I didn’t find a community until I joined the society,” she said. “Now I want to help others find theirs, even if they don’t have a telescope or a clear view of the stars.”
Now that she’s been recognized as a Distinguished Winner in the 2025 Swift Student Challenge, Luciana is preparing to attend Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). There, she’ll meet Apple engineers, participate in coding labs, and gain valuable feedback to further refine her app.
Her long-term goal? To publish BreakDownCosmic on the App Store and continue improving its features.
Luciana’s vision isn’t just technical, it’s philosophical. She believes that everyone should have a chance to explore space, even if they can’t physically reach it.
In a time when scientific literacy and STEM access are more important than ever, apps like BreakDownCosmic represent a vital shift. They democratize access to knowledge that was once limited to textbooks, formal classes, or expensive equipment. More importantly, they show that astronomy isn’t just for scientists, it’s for dreamers, kids, and communities.
Ortiz Nolasco’s approach reflects a growing trend in astronomy outreach: the fusion of digital tools with grassroots enthusiasm. While space agencies and observatories continue to push the boundaries of scientific discovery, tools like BreakDownCosmic ensure that the public is invited along for the ride.
Luciana is part of a new wave of young creators who are not only fluent in technology, but also deeply motivated by social and educational causes. Her app isn’t just a project, it’s a mission statement. At just 15 years old, she’s already thinking about how to make science more inclusive and how to use code to bring people together.
“I want people to feel like they’re going on a journey through space when they log into my app,” she said. “The universe is full of mysteries we have yet to discover. This journey is not just for some selected people. The universe is where we live. It’s our home.”
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