Scientists Say Black Holes Could Form Inside Planets, Leading to Absolute Catastrophe

"The prevailing model suggests that dark matter is made up of weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs, which are heavy and slow enough that they clump together and form enormous dark matter "halos" that give birth to entire galaxies. WIMPs also don't interact with ordinary matter and even light, rendering them effectively invisible. It's hypothesized that these particles can annihilate each other upon colliding, releasing gamma rays that should be detectable, but so far, efforts to detect signs of these collisions have come up short."

"Fresh research predicts that planets may be able to accumulate enough dark matter to suddenly form a black hole at their core. As the intruder grows, catastrophe unfolds: it would then devour the world from the inside out, becoming a black hole with the same mass as its unfortunate meal. The findings, published as a study in the journal Physical Review D, are terrifying to contemplate. The intent, however, wasn't to haunt our dreams but to demonstrate a potential new avenue for studying dark matter, the invisible substance that accounts for 85 percent of all mass in the universe."

Gas giant planets can capture sufficient dark matter to form compact concentrations at their cores that collapse into black holes. As the central black hole grows by accreting planetary material and dark matter, it would consume the planet from the inside out, leaving a black hole with the same mass as the original planet. This mechanism affects gaseous exoplanets rather than rocky worlds like Earth. Formation could occur on observable timescales in regions with high dark matter density, potentially producing multiple black holes during a single exoplanet's lifetime. Detecting such events or missing exoplanets could offer a probe of superheavy dark matter particles.

Read at Futurism