00:00Astronomers have detected a faint hydrogen signal from billions of light-years away.
00:04The discovery was made using South Africa's Meerkat radio telescope.
00:09The signal traveled roughly 4 to 5 billion years before reaching Earth.
00:13Researchers extracted it from about 96 hours of radio observations.
00:18The data came from 2018, when Meerkat had just begun science operations.
00:23The team used a technique called hydrogen intensity mapping.
00:26It measures the combined radio glow of hydrogen across large regions of space.
00:31This can reveal cosmic structure without detecting every galaxy individually.
00:36The hydrogen emissions were traced across scales of several million light-years.
00:40Its radio waves began at a wavelength of about 21 centimeters.
00:44As the universe expands, those waves stretch to longer wavelengths.
00:48That shift helps astronomers identify different periods in cosmic history.
00:52The new detection shows that hydrogen intensity mapping is becoming practical.
00:57It could help scientists study galaxy formation and evolution.
01:01It may also reveal how dark matter shapes the cosmic web.
01:04Researchers say larger surveys and longer observations could create more detailed maps.
01:10Future work with the square kilometer array could expand this approach.
01:14Together, these observations may offer a clearer picture of how the universe evolved.
01:19Disclosure. This video contains stock footage and content created or enhanced using AI-assisted tools.
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