{"id":530423,"date":"2026-04-14T14:35:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T14:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/530423\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T14:35:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T14:35:14","slug":"astronomers-may-have-finally-found-where-universes-missing-hydrogen-is-hidden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/530423\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers may have finally found where universe\u2019s \u2018missing\u2019 hydrogen is hidden"},"content":{"rendered":"

Your support helps us to tell the story<\/p>\n

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.<\/p>\n

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.<\/p>\n

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.<\/p>\n

Your support makes all the difference.Read more<\/p>\n

Hydrogen<\/a> gas clouds<\/a> surrounding galaxies<\/a> are far more prevalent than previously thought, according to a new study that reveals hidden pockets of the universe\u2019s first element.<\/p>\n

Between 10 billion and 12 billion years ago, a period known as the \u201ccosmic noon<\/a>\u201d, galaxies were forming stars<\/a> at their peak rate. This would have needed immense supplies of hydrogen gas<\/a>, the main ingredient for star formation. However, until recently, just about 3,000 of these gas halos had been detected in the universe.<\/p>\n

The latest research increases this number to over 33,000, giving researchers with a more complete dataset to study how early galaxies began and evolved.<\/p>\n

Since hydrogen doesn\u2019t emit light on its own, it is detected mostly when it is close enough to energy sources like galaxies filled with ultraviolet-emitting stars, which cause the gas molecules to glow.<\/p>\n

Finding this faint signal, however, requires long observations with highly sensitive instruments, which are always readily available. This is why only the brightest and most extreme hydrogen gas halos have been discovered so far.<\/p>\n

\"AA halo of hydrogen gas detected by the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (Nasa)<\/p>\n

The new study used the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at the McDonald Observatory in Texas to capture nearly half a petabyte of data on galaxies and the regions in between.<\/p>\n

In this trove of data, scientists identified new hydrogen gas halos ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of light years across.<\/p>\n

Some of these are simple, football-shaped clouds around a single galaxy, while others are large, irregular structures that contain multiple galaxies. <\/p>\n

\u201cThose are the fun ones. They look like giant amoebas with tendrils extending into space,\u201d said Erin Mentuch Cooper, an author of the study published in the Astrophysical Journal.<\/p>\n

The researchers hope to study the newly discovered halos in detail to better understand the sources of the universe\u2019s \u201cmissing\u201d hydrogen.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are various models for galaxies in this epoch that largely work and seem to make sense, but there are gaps and holes,\u201d said Dustin Davis, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we can focus on individual halos and see at a greater detail the physics and mechanics of what\u2019s going on. And then we can fix or throw out the models and try again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-530423","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}