Scientists continue to search for possible manifestations of a mysterious substance called dark matter. They believe that it can still interact with the ordinary material of our planet in one way or another. And this process should manifest itself in an increase in temperature and an acceleration of rotation.
Dark matter on Earth
Scientists have suggested that dark matter could manifest itself in ways that no one has thought of until now. At least that’s according to Chinese astronomers from Xinjiang Observatory, who posted a paper titled “Dark Matter (S)pins the Planet” on arXiv.
The search for dark matter, which supposedly makes up 85% of the entire mass of the Universe continues to resemble hunting for a black cat in a dark room. And we’re still not 100% sure it’s here. We don’t know what these particles are that don’t interact with anything, but their gravity somehow really makes galaxies spin in a very different way than they should if we only consider visible objects.
The presence of dark matter near Earth and on our planet is a different story. So far, no phenomenon that could confirm its existence directly near us has been observed. But a bunch of theoretical lines of thought show that it’s not impossible, and there should be manifestations that ground-based instruments would be able to detect.
Spinning the Earth
In the new study, the authors do not specify whether they are talking about massive weakly interacting particles (WIMPs), axions, or something else. The main thing about them is that they must at least occasionally interact with ordinary matter in one of several ways: either through decay, annihilation, or capture.
One way or another, they have to transfer a certain amount of energy to the planet, and it has to transfer into some forms that we can measure. Most simply and most likely, it will be heat, i.e., the kinetic energy of the motion of molecules.
The scientists applied their models to 15 already confirmed exoplanets including 55 Cancri d and Epsilon Eridani b. They also checked to see if the effect would be observed on Earth and Jupiter. And they found that yes, there should be an effect, albeit a small one.
In particular, the researchers calculated that the average temperature on the planet should increase by 0.015 K per hundred years, or 0.15 K. In addition, this energy should be converted into mechanical energy, which means an increase in rotational speed.
Calculations show that the length of the day should increase by 12 seconds per 100 years or 120 seconds per 1000 years. That is, one way or another, we’d have to feel it.
According to phys.org
