We know that dark matter exists, but, irritatingly, we don’t know what it is.
One way to figure that out is to look for signs of it here on Earth, using subatomic particle detectors. But a new idea just published in a scientific journal is that we need to go bigger. A lot bigger: Using
entire exoplanets as detectors.
I give them points for thinking originally, for sure. matter directly. It affects the way galaxies rotate, the way galaxies behave in clusters, the way clusters affect the light of objects behind them, and a host of other things, too. We know it exists. And over the decades people have looked for it, but almost everything that could possibly work has been eliminated. It’s not teeny black holes, or rogue planets, or cold gas. Nothing made of normal matter works, leaving only “exotic” subatomic particles like axions as candidates. Attempts have been made to look for those, too, but so far zip.