The human body is made up of approximately 1,028 particles conjugated together. An ordinary person weighs 50 to 100 kilograms and stands on the surface of the Earth. But dark matter behaves differently. It does not interact with nuclear or electromagnetic forces. It does not collide with other particles or with itself. It only interacts with gravitational force, and as far as we can tell, this is the only force it deals with. What would happen to you, to a person, if suddenly all the particles of your body turned into particles of dark matter?
The difference between what you are and what you can become is enormous.
On Earth, we are made of ordinary matter: mostly in the form of atoms. At the subatomic level, our atomic nuclei are tied together by a strong nuclear force, allowing a wide variety of elements from the periodic table to coexist stably in one body. It is the electromagnetic force that holds your body in one whole, binding atoms in molecules, cells, organs and the whole body. The gravitational pull of the Earth keeps us on the surface, and the electromagnetic forces between the Earth's atoms prevent us from sinking underground. Meanwhile, the Earth is orbiting the Sun, which revolves in a galaxy that is racing through space.
ISS orbiting Earth, which revolves around the Sun and moves through the galaxy at the same time
Imagine if all the cells in our body would suddenly be at the mercy of dark matter?
What if, instead of being made up of Standard Model particles that experience a full set of fundamental interactions, we turn into particles that only interact gravitationally? First of all, of course, your body will cease to be connected into one whole, and you will simply disappear. The nuclear forces holding your nuclei and protons together will evaporate; the electromagnetic forces that hold atoms and molecules together will disappear; your cells and organs will simply cease to exist.
There won't be any fantastic visuals. You will simply become invisible, as even light will not reflect off the particles of your body.
Instead, due to the thermal motion of the particles at a speed of about 3000 m / s, the dark matter that made up your body will simply scatter in all directions. But even at this speed, dark matter particles will remain attached to the Earth, since their speed will not be enough to overcome the planet's gravitational pull. Each individual particle, despite moving in random directions, suddenly enters an elliptical orbit with the center of the Earth at one of the focuses. Without an electromagnetic force to prevent the passage of dark matter through the Earth, it simply flies until it returns to its original position: the journey takes about 88 minutes.
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Remarkably, the dark matter particles that once made up you do not lose energy as they pass through the Earth. Since no forces other than gravity interfere with them, they will remain in orbits indefinitely, soaring above the surface of the Earth and returning to their original position, where your body was. You will never re-shape your body from these dark matter particles, instead, each particle will always pass through the point where your body was.
Since the Earth, the Sun, the galaxy and everything else also obey the laws of gravity, only tidal forces ultimately cause dark matter to behave differently from Earth's atoms. Very, very slowly, the tidal friction of the Moon and the Sun causes the rotation of our planet to slow down. A slightly lengthened day means that everything on the Earth's surface, from the land and oceans to the atmosphere, will take longer to return to its original point with each revolution. But not dark matter.
Instead, dark matter will slowly drift over time, moving away from its original location as the Earth's rotation slows down. You see, dark matter does not depend on anything other than gravity, so even at a time when the Earth's rotation changes, dark matter does not react to it in any way. After only one year, the location to which dark matter returns will shift by about half a meter and will be removed geometrically over time.
As long as the gravitational dance of our world, the solar system and the galaxy continues, dark matter that once remained tied to the Earth (along with you) will drift in relation to all other matter, spending most of its time deep in the Earth. But from time to time it will return to your original place, since no dissipative forces will affect it. All that will be left of you is energy and impulse.
Ilya Khel