Dark matter asteroids (if they exist) may cause solar flares

An X1.6 class solar flare flashes in the middle of the sun on Sept. 10, 2014. (credit: NASA/SDO)

Dark matter is proving to be a rather frustrating topic for physicists, cosmologists, and other outward-looking scientists. All the data for dark matter is gravitational, and the lack of other evidence only draws a box on the particle map where scientists have scrawled, “Here be dark matter.”

Dark matter interacts so weakly with ordinary matter that we simply don’t notice it over the racket of ordinary matter drunkenly shouting at the Universe’s particle bar. What we need is to give it a place to shine—to let it take the spotlight and sing karaoke. It turns out that the inside of a star might just be that place.

Disappointing flashes in the dark

Most proposals for dark matter candidates use the simplest possible extension to the Standard Model. These extensions allow theoretical physicists to estimate how such particles would interact with ordinary matter.

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