Astronomers Detect a Faint Hydrogen Signal From Billions of Light-Years Away

The MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa directly detected faint neutral hydrogen emission that traveled to Earth for 4–5 billion years. The signal was extracted from ~96 hours of 2018 observations, confirming the hydrogen intensity mapping method for studying the structure of the Universe.

• Signal traveled to Earth for about 4–5 billion years
• Data collected over ~96 hours of MeerKAT observations in 2018
• Hydrogen intensity mapping method does not require imaging each galaxy
• Result published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters