It's the most depressing day of the year. So it should come as no surprise for you to learn, then, that the Earth may be being weighed down by dark matter. Bummer, man.

Ben Harris–a GSP satellite expert and professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Texas–has a theory that there's a massive band of dark energy around the earth that is, in essence, adding to gravity. Harris studied the earth's gravitational pull on GPS satellites for close to a year and came to the conclusion that something more than just earth's gravity is keeping the satellites in orbit.

So, there's a possibility that something is out there. But science blogger and all-around smart person Matthew Francis says raises some interesting points about dark matter in a (well worth reading) rebuttal:

While you sit and read this blog post, dark matter particles are passing through your body, without you ever noticing. Whether you find that creepy or not depends on your mindset, of course; to dark matter, you're basically transparent. ...

Sure, it's possible that dark matter might clump up a bit around Earth if its constituent particles interact relatively strongly with each other.The effect has to be really tiny, though — we've measured the gravitational field around Earth very well, something known as the geoid. In the absence of such interactions, the density doesn't increase greatly in the vicinity of Earth or even the Sun. Gravity from those objects concentrates dark matter a little, but because it interacts so weakly with ordinary matter, it won't comprise a high fraction of the mass of our planet.

Is it worth getting worked up about? Perhaps not. Although it's certainly extremely depressing to think that there's a special band of dark matter around the earth, it may not be entirely factual.

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