China's FAST Telescope Provides New Insights into Slowing Cosmic Star Formation

A new study led by Chinese scientists, utilizing China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), offers crucial clues to understanding why star formation has slowed in the universe. The research, published in Nature Astronomy, reveals that while the cosmic star formation rate has significantly decreased, the density of neutral atomic hydrogen has not depleted commensurately, suggesting that the efficiency of converting neutral hydrogen into molecular hydrogen is declining.