Black holes and dark matter have long been the subjects of comic book fantasy.

While science proved these phenomena could theoretically exist, many certainly never believed they could be created here on earth...until now.

"When they collide, they produce very similar conditions to what we would have in the early universe,"  says UALR Professor Marc Seigar.

He says the Hadron Collider could give us a close look at dark matter...which is more prevalent than any other kind of matter in the universe.

But because it's impossible to see, we don't know exactly what it is.

But one thing we do know... it likely contains lots of energy.

"If you have a lot of matter, you could have a lot of energy,” says Seigar, “You could have an energy reserve, it's a possibility."

Critics say the Hadron Collider will create conditions for a black hole to emerge.

Lawsuits have been filed that claim it could be a threat to the planet.

Professor Seigar says that's nonsense.

"They would only exist for a tiny fraction of a second... they wouldn't have any time to affect the world around us," he says.

Seigar is part of a team of professors at UALR that recently received a two million dollar grant from NASA to study super-massive black holes in the universe which he says are usually found at the center of galaxies.

"These black holes usually tell you something about how galaxies evolved... And something about where we came from," Seigar says.