Dark matter could be destroying itself inside the bellies of exoplanets
By Adam Mann - Live Science Contributor about 12 hours ago
Researchers propose learning more about dark matter by looking for its effects inside exoplanets.
An artist's impression of a gaseous exoplanet. Large gaseous planets would accumulate more dark matter, so are good candidates for the search for this mysterious substance. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Large gaseous exoplanets could be filled with self-destructing dark matter. And now, a team of researchers has proposed using the soon-to-be-launched James Webb Space Telescope to scan distant behemoths in the galaxy for potential heating effects that could arise from the mysterious substance, which outweighs regular matter by almost 6 to 1 in the universe.
Physicists know dark matter exists because it tugs gravitationally on stars and galaxies. But, so far, the invisible material has foiled every attempt to better understand its properties.
Many theories of dark matter propose that it is made of individual particles and that these particles can sometimes hit one another as well as regular matter particles, Juri Smirnov, an astroparticle physicist at The Ohio State University, told Live Science. According to these models, two dark matter particles might also smash together and annihilate each other, generating heat, he added.
If those assumptions are true, dark matter particles should occasionally crash into large objects such as exoplanets, causing the particles to lose energy and accumulate inside those worlds. There, they could annihilate each other and produce a measurable heat signal that's visible from far away, Smirnov said.
More:
https://www.livescience.com/dark-matter-destroying-itself-inside-exoplanets.html
