Supermassive black holes are exotic astrophysical objects harbored at the centers of galaxies. Their masses can reach 1 million to 1 billion times larger than our sun, and their gravitational force is so strong that even light cannot escape; hence the name “black” holes. Dark matter is a mysterious form of matter that lurks in galaxies and clusters of galaxies. It gives a strong gravitational pull but emits no light, so it is known as “dark.” Now a new theoretical study has linked the “black” and the “dark” together. A group of astrophysicists, led by Dr. Carlos Argüelles of the Universidad Nacional de La Plata and ICRANet, investigated the potential existence of galactic cores formed from dark matter. They found that the centers of dark matter cores surrounded by diluted dark matter haloes could become so dense that they may collapse into supermassive black holes. Standard black hole formation models …