Indian scientists spot hydrogen from 8 billion years ago. It could help decode dark energy

New Delhi: Scientists from the Raman Research Institute in Bengaluru have detected the first signs of hydrogen from when the universe was just five billion years old.

According to a new paper published in The Astrophysical Journal on 28 September, a joint project between Canadian, American and Indian scientists used the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) radio telescope to make the first ‘standalone’ detection of hydrogen glow during the early days of the universe.

The CHIME telescope, housed in British Columbia, Canada, was built in 2017 specifically to study how hydrogen, the most abundant substance in the universe, was distributed in the early universe.