A dark matter hail: Detecting macroscopic dark matter with asteroids, planetary rings, and craters

Authors: Zachary S. C. Picker

arXiv: 2504.07232v1 - DOI (astro-ph.CO)
License: CC BY 4.0

Abstract: Dark matter could be composed of macroscopic objects with large masses and geometric cross-sections spanning many decades. We investigate the potential interaction of such `stuff-sized' dark matter by considering its interactions with asteroids, planetary rings, and terrestrial bodies. This hail of dark matter could catastrophically destroy these Solar System objects, evaporate them from their orbits, or cause substantial cratering. We estimate these effects and use them to place competitive bounds on a wide, previously-unconstrained swathe of the dark matter parameter space.

Submitted to arXiv on 09 Apr. 2025

Explore the paper tree

Click on the tree nodes to be redirected to a given paper and access their summaries and virtual assistant

Also access our AI generated Summaries, or ask questions about this paper to our AI assistant.

Look for similar papers (in beta version)

By clicking on the button above, our algorithm will scan all papers in our database to find the closest based on the contents of the full papers and not just on metadata. Please note that it only works for papers that we have generated summaries for and you can rerun it from time to time to get a more accurate result while our database grows.