{"id":106834,"date":"2025-08-24T15:27:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T15:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/106834\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T15:27:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T15:27:09","slug":"a-physicist-wants-to-turn-jupiters-largest-moon-into-a-gigantic-dark-matter-detector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/106834\/","title":{"rendered":"A Physicist Wants to Turn Jupiter’s Largest Moon Into a Gigantic Dark Matter Detector"},"content":{"rendered":"

When searching for the unknown, classic physics wisdom holds that a bigger detector boosts the chances of discovery<\/a>. A physicist is taking that advice to heart, advancing a bold plan to use none other than Ganymede\u2014Jupiter\u2019s largest moon\u2014as a dark matter detector on an astronomical scale.<\/p>\n

Dark matter refers to the \u201cinvisible\u201d mass that supposedly constitutes 85% of the universe. There\u2019s considerable evidence<\/a> that dark matter exists, but it\u2019s \u201cdark,\u201d meaning it doesn\u2019t respond to light and very weakly interacts with other matter. The search for dark matter has tested the limits of physicists\u2019 creativity, but a proposal by William DeRocco<\/a>, a physicist at the University of Maryland, may be the most extraordinary yet. In a preprint submitted to arXiv<\/a>, Rocco suggests that Ganymede\u2019s craters may store evidence of dark matter particles, which spacecraft like NASA\u2019s Europa Clipper<\/a> or ESA\u2019s JUICE<\/a> could observe during their respective missions.<\/p>\n

The paper, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, proposes that massive dark matter particles could have struck and penetrated Ganymede\u2019s thick, icy surface, leaving deep, broad ruptures. Unlike the comparatively small-sized candidates for dark matter that ground-based detectors are searching for, these particles would be much larger. These extra-large dark matter particles would create \u201cdark matter craters\u201d\u2014smaller dents on Ganymede\u2019s surface comprised of distinctive minerals pulled to the surface from deep inside the moon\u2019s oceans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you used something like ground-penetrating radar, you might be able to see this column of melted ice going all the way down through the ice,\u201d DeRocco explained in an interview with New Scientist<\/a>. Studying Ganymede\u2019s surface with this proposal in mind could uncover some unexpected insights about cosmic dark matter, according to the paper.<\/p>\n

In principle, the proposal sounds promising, Bradley Kavanaugh, an astrophysicist at the University of Cantabria in Spain who was not involved in the study, also told New Scientist. At the same time\u2014like all dark matter experiments\u2014there is still no definitive evidence that such heavy, massive dark matter particles actually exist.<\/p>\n

If all of this sounds bonkers, I don\u2019t blame you. Still, it\u2019s important to remember that, as many physicists are keen to point out, solving a physics mystery often means testing bold, unconventional ideas<\/a>. And while there\u2019s no decisive evidence that this particular proposal is correct, there isn\u2019t any evidence to discount it, either<\/a>. We\u2019ll have to wait and see if NASA or ESA takes up DeRocco\u2019s idea, and if they do, whether Ganymede really does have a surface dotted with dark matter craters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When searching for the unknown, classic physics wisdom holds that a bigger detector boosts the chances of discovery.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[10239,21778,70631,21780,79,193],"class_list":{"0":"post-106834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-dark-matter","9":"tag-europa-clipper","10":"tag-ganymede","11":"tag-jupiter","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}