Planetary Black Holes: Using Exoplanets to Hunt Super‑Heavy Dark Matter

In this deep dive, we explore a provocative idea: giant, cold exoplanets—especially gas giants—as cosmic detectors for super‑heavy dark matter. Particles streaming through a planet could be captured, sink to the core, and, if enough accumulate, collapse into a black hole. The outcomes could be dramatic: the planet could be consumed via accretion, or a tiny evaporating black hole might heat the world or emit high‑energy signals. We unpack the mechanism, the possible observational fingerprints—altered transits, microlensing signals, or bursts of high‑energy particles—and why this August 2025 work by Fortamehr and Featherolf offers a compelling, complementary path to probing dark matter using planets as living laboratories.

Source: https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/qkwt-kd9q

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