Rosa Rubicondior: The Universe Is Nothing Like The Description of it in The Bible 2

A scientist and a preacher investigate the Universe

Using exoplanets to study dark matter | UCR News | UC Riverside

The second of five blog posts that comprehensively refute any lingering notion that Genesis is the inerrant word of a creator god, rather than the best guesses of primitive Bronze Age pastoralists, who imagined Earth as a small, flat plane beneath a solid dome. This time, the focus is on news from a University of California Riverside (UCR) team, who are using the more than 5,000 exoplanets discovered to date to investigate the mysterious phenomenon of dark matter.

Dark matter poses a challenge for science—not because its existence is in doubt, but because its nature and relationship to the standard model of particle physics remain unknown. We know it exists because it exerts gravitational effects on galaxies and other cosmic structures, yet it does not appear to interact with ordinary matter in any detectable way. What we can infer, however, is that dark matter makes up a substantial fraction of the universe’s total mass.

For science, this is a puzzle to be investigated head-on. For creationists, however, both the confirmed existence of thousands of exoplanets and the reality of dark matter are insurmountable contradictions to their Bible-based cosmology. The Genesis account insists on a tiny, flat Earth, immovably fixed at the centre, covered with a dome, with waters above and below — a description so far removed from reality that it cannot honestly be excused as metaphor, allegory, or poetic licence. It is simply wrong.

Unlike science, which welcomes such problems as opportunities to investigate and refine our understanding, religion turns a blind eye and ploughs on, muttering about “mysterious ways,” “beyond human comprehension,” or simply, “God did it!” — all while smugly pretending the issue has been solved “by faith.”

Exoplanets & Dark Matter.

Exoplanets everywhere: Astronomers have now confirmed more than 5,000 exoplanets, with thousands more candidates awaiting verification. These worlds range from gas giants larger than Jupiter to rocky super-Earths and ocean planets, proving that planetary systems are common across the galaxy. Far from being the unique centrepiece of creation, Earth is just one planet among countless others.
Dark matter mystery: Though invisible and undetectable by light, dark matter makes its presence felt through gravity. It shapes the rotation of galaxies, bends light through gravitational lensing, and helps knit the universe together on a cosmic scale. Current estimates suggest it accounts for about 27% of the universe’s total mass-energy, dwarfing the 5% made of ordinary matter.
A scientific puzzle, a creationist impossibility: For science, dark matter is a profound mystery and an open challenge—one researchers are confronting with new methods, including the study of exoplanets. For biblical creationism, however, both the existence of thousands of alien worlds and an invisible mass outweighing normal matter are irreconcilable with Genesis.

The work of the UCR team is the subject of a paper in the journal Physical Review D and is explained in a UCR news item by Iqbal Pittalwala.

Using exoplanets to study dark matter
Scientists’ model suggests dark matter in gas giants could collapse into detectable black holes
More than 5,000 planets have been discovered beyond our solar system, allowing scientists to explore planetary evolution and consider the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Now, a UC Riverside study published in Physical Review D suggests that exoplanets, which are planets orbiting stars outside our solar system, could also serve as tools to investigate dark matter.

The researchers examined how dark matter, which makes up 85% of the universe’s matter, might affect Jupiter-sized exoplanets over long periods of time. Their theoretical calculations suggest dark matter particles could gradually collect in the cores of these planets. Although dark matter has never been detected in laboratories, physicists are confident it exists.
If the dark matter particles are heavy enough and don’t annihilate, they may eventually collapse into a tiny black hole. This black hole could then grow and consume the entire planet, turning it into a black hole with the same mass as the original planet. This outcome is only possible under the superheavy non-annihilating dark matter model.

Mehrdad Phoroutan-Mehr, first author.
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of California, Riverside
California, USA.

[Mehrdad Phoroutan-Mehr] is a graduate student in the Department of Physics and Astronomy who works with Hai-Bo Yu, a professor of physics and astronomy.

According to the superheavy non-annihilating dark matter model, dark matter particles are extremely massive and do not destroy each other when they interact. The researchers focused on this model to show how superheavy dark matter particles are captured by exoplanets, lose energy, and drift toward their cores. There, they accumulate and collapse into black holes.

In gaseous exoplanets of various sizes, temperatures, and densities, black holes could form on observable timescales, potentially even generating multiple black holes in a single exoplanet’s lifetime. These results show how exoplanet surveys could be used to hunt for superheavy dark matter particles, especially in regions hypothesized to be rich in dark matter like our Milky Way’s galactic center.

Mehrdad Phoroutan-Mehr.

Phoroutan-Mehr was joined in the study by Tara Fetherolf, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.

Phoroutan-Mehr explained that, so far, astronomers have only detected black holes with masses greater than our sun. He said most existing theories suggest that black holes must be at least that massive.

Discovering a black hole with the mass of a planet would be a major breakthrough. It would support the thesis of our paper and offer an alternative to the commonly accepted theory that planet-sized black holes could only form in the early universe.

Mehrdad Phoroutan-Mehr.

According to Phoroutan-Mehr, exoplanets have not been used much in dark matter research largely because scientists did not have enough data about them.
But in recent years, our knowledge of exoplanets has expanded dramatically, and several upcoming space missions will provide even more detailed observations. With this growing body of data, exoplanets can be used to test and challenge different dark matter models.

Mehrdad Phoroutan-Mehr.

Phoroutan-Mehr said in the past scientists investigated dark matter by observing objects like the sun, neutron stars, and white dwarfs, since different models of dark matter can affect these objects in different ways. For example, some models suggest that dark matter can heat up neutron stars.
So, if we were to observe an old and cold neutron star, it could rule out certain properties of dark matter, since dark matter is theoretically expected to heat them up.

Mehrdad Phoroutan-Mehr.

He added that many exoplanets (and Jupiter in our solar system) not having collapsed into black holes can help scientists rule out or refine dark matter models such as the superheavy non-annihilating dark matter model.
If astronomers were to discover a population of planet-sized black holes, it could offer strong evidence in favor of the superheavy non-annihilating dark matter model. As we continue to collect more data and examine individual planets in more detail, exoplanets may offer crucial insights into the nature of dark matter.

Mehrdad Phoroutan-Mehr.

Phoroutan-Mehr noted that another possible effect of dark matter on exoplanets — and possibly on planets in our solar system — is that it could heat them or cause them to emit high-energy radiation.

Today’s instruments aren’t sensitive enough to detect these signals. Future telescopes and space missions may be able to pick them up.

Mehrdad Phoroutan-Mehr.

Publication:
Phoroutan-Mehr, Mehrdad; Fetherolf, Tara (2025)
Probing superheavy dark matter with exoplanets
Physical Review D 112(3), DOI: 10.1103/qkwt-kd9q.

Abstract
Exoplanets, with their large volumes and low temperatures, are ideal celestial detectors for probing dark matter (DM) interactions. DM particles can lose energy through scattering with the planetary interior and become gravitationally captured if their interaction with the visible sector is sufficiently strong. In the absence of annihilation, the captured DM thermalizes and accumulates at the planet’s center, eventually collapsing into black holes (BHs). Using gaseous exoplanets as an example, we demonstrate that BH formation can occur within an observable timescale for superheavy DM with masses greater than 10⁶ GeV and nuclear scattering cross sections. The BHs may either accrete the planetary medium or evaporate via Hawking radiation, depending on the mass of the DM that formed them. We explore the possibility of periodic BH formation within the unconstrained DM parameter space and discuss potential detection methods, including observations of planetary-mass objects, pulsed high-energy cosmic rays, and variations in exoplanet temperatures. Our findings suggest that future extensive exoplanet observations could provide complementary opportunities to terrestrial and cosmological searches for superheavy DM.

Phoroutan-Mehr, Mehrdad; Fetherolf, Tara (2025)
Probing superheavy dark matter with exoplanets
Physical Review D 112(3), DOI: 10.1103/qkwt-kd9q.

Copyright: © 2025 The authors.
Published by American Physical Society (APS). Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

The discovery of thousands of exoplanets and the ongoing investigation into dark matter show us a universe far richer and stranger than anything the authors of Genesis could have imagined. Science does not shrink from the unknown but embraces it, using each mystery as a path to deeper understanding. Religion, by contrast, clings to outdated myths of a flat Earth under a dome, dismissing the cosmos with a shrug of “God did it.” The reality is that we inhabit a universe billions of years old, filled with countless worlds and bound together by unseen forces still being uncovered.

This is the second example of how evidence leaves creationist cosmology threadbare, and in the next post we will explore yet another discovery that further exposes the Bible’s primitive model for what it is: a human invention, not divine truth.

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