India, April 3 -- An international team of astronomers led by professor Neeraj Gupta, astronomer at the Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), India, on Wednesday released the most comprehensive catalogue of cold hydrogen gas in the Milky Way galaxy as part of the MeerKAT Absorption Line Survey (MALS) project using data from the most sensitive radio telescope on Earth, the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa.

Such hydrogen atoms may eventually transform into molecular gas, the basic fuel for star formation. Therefore, these cold gas structures are key to the conditions that enable star formation and are of considerable interest to astronomers.

Professor Gupta who is the lead investigator of the MALS project, said,...