BENGALURU: In a study conducted at the Raman Research Institute, involving international researchers who worked on the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) telescope, it has been revealed that the telescope is capable of using its own data to detect the faint glow of hydrogen gas from the far depths of the universe.
The team of researchers, including those from India, made the first standalone detection of the glow of Hydrogen from when the universe was about five billion years old, paving the way for new studies of cosmic expansion and dark energy.
The interferometric radio telescope was set up in Canada. It was built to map the distribution of hydrogen gas in the early stages of the universe. This allows astronomers to calculate the universe’s expansion. They can then investigate dark energy, the “mysterious” force thought to be driving the universe to expand faster over time.
“Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe and the raw material from which stars form. Its faint radio emission acts like a cosmic tracer, revealing how matter is distributed across space.” said co-author Dr Arnab Chakraborty, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, who first proposed the finding.
It has been established through the RRI breakthrough that the CHIME telescope can investigate contradicting theories on dark energy independently using its data, and help prove or disprove them.
“CHIME is a unique instrument that scans a large fraction of the cosmos as the sky drifts over it. With no moving parts and high accuracy measurements, CHIME delivers a snapshot of what our sky looks like at radio wavelengths every day,” said co-author Dr Saurabh Singh, an associate professor at the research institute.