Astronomers still don’t know what dark matter is, but they are confident in its existence based on observations of galaxy rotation, gravitational lensing, and cosmic microwave background radiation. Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences have proposed a new way to detect its presence, suggesting that dark matter particles may penetrate planets, heating them and altering their rotational dynamics.
As dark matter particles pass through a planet, they transfer energy through scattering, capture, and annihilation processes. This results in kinetic energy being imparted to ordinary matter, increasing the planet’s temperature and accelerating its rotation. Scientists modeled these processes using 15 exoplanets, as well as Jupiter and Earth. According to their calculations, if dark matter interactions are real, Earth’s atmospheric temperature could increase by 0.015 K per century, and its rotational period could shorten by about 12 seconds over the same timeframe.
These hypotheses offer a novel method for detecting dark matter by analyzing temperature and rotational changes in planets. While debates over the nature of dark energy continue, some data suggest that its influence may have weakened over the past 4.5 billion years, contradicting previous assumptions about its constancy.
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