 Throughout the universe , hydrogen is mostly found in the atomic and plasma states , with properties quite different from those of molecular hydrogen . As a plasma , hydrogen 's electron and proton are not bound together , resulting in very high electrical conductivity and high emissivity ( producing the light from the Sun and other stars ) . The charged particles are highly influenced by magnetic and electric fields . For example , in the solar wind they interact with the Earth 's magnetosphere giving rise to Birkeland currents and the aurora . Hydrogen is found in the neutral atomic state in the interstellar medium . The large amount of neutral hydrogen found in the damped Lyman @-@ alpha systems is thought to dominate the cosmological baryonic density of the Universe up to redshift z = 4 . 
