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Huge Black Hole That Is Eating One Sun Everyday Discovered – Sakshi English

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A new study conducted by an international team of astronomers found that the fastest-growing black hole, J2157 known to humans is 34 billion times the mass of our Sun and is extremely hungry. It eats nearly the equivalent of one Sun every day. The study was published in ‘Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society’ and the research was conducted by “The Australian National University.”

Dr. Christopher Onken, one of the researchers said that the mass of the black hole is about 8,000 times larger than the black hole in the centre of the Milky Way. He further added that, “If the black hole of the Milky Way wanted to expand that large, it would have to swallow two-thirds of all the stars in our Galaxy.”

Onken said that that how much a black hole can eat depends on how big they are. In this case, the black hole is so big that is why it can live on the diet of one sun a day. The studies say that the black hole is growing 1% every one million years. J2157 was discovered by the team for the first time in 2018. Dr. Onken asserted that the scientists were looking at it at a time when the universe was just 1.2 billion years old, adding that it has been the biggest black hole that weighed in that early period of the universe.

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Onken added that “With such an enormous black hole, we’re also excited to see what we can learn about the galaxy in which it is growing. Is this galaxy one of the behemoths of the early Universe, or did the black hole just swallow up an extraordinary amount of its surroundings? We’ll have to keep digging to figure that out.”

Christian Wolf, who found the black hole, said, “This black hole is expanding so quickly that it shines thousands of times brighter than the entire galaxy, because of all the gasses it absorbs every day that cause a lot of friction and heat.” According to the study, Fuyan Bian of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), who is also part of the team said that they have used the very large telescope of ESO in Chile to collect data on the mass of the black hole. It is located inside the Holm 15A galaxy, which is 700 million light-years away from Earth.

A year ago, NASA stated that “A black hole and its shadow have been captured in an image for the first time, a historic feat by an international network of radio telescopes called the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT).”

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Giant prehistoric salmon had tusk-like teeth for defence, building nests

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The artwork and publicity materials showcasing a giant salmon that lived five million years ago were ready to go to promote a new exhibit, when the discovery of two fossilized skulls immediately changed what researchers knew about the fish.

Initial fossil discoveries of the 2.7-metre-long salmon in Oregon in the 1970s were incomplete and had led researchers to mistakenly suggest the fish had fang-like teeth.

It was dubbed the “sabre-toothed salmon” and became a kind of mascot for the Museum of Natural and Cultural History at the University of Oregon, says researcher Edward Davis.

But then came discovery of two skulls in 2014.

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Davis, a member of the team that found the skulls, says it wasn’t until they got back to the lab that he realized the significance of the discovery that has led to the renaming of the fish in a new, peer-reviewed study.

“There were these two skulls staring at me with sideways teeth,” says Davis, an associate professor in the department of earth sciences at the university.

In that position, the tusk-like teeth could not have been used for biting, he says.

“That was definitely a surprising moment,” says Davis, who serves as director of the Condon Fossil Collection at the university’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History.

“I realized that all of the artwork and all of the publicity materials and bumper stickers and buttons and T-shirts we had just made two months prior, for the new exhibit, were all out of date,” he says with a laugh.

Davis is co-author of the new study in the journal PLOS One, which renames the giant fish the “spike-toothed salmon.”

It says the salmon used the tusk-like spikes for building nests to spawn, and as defence mechanisms against predators and other salmon.

The salmon lived about five million years ago at a time when Earth was transitioning from warmer to relatively cooler conditions, Davis says.

It’s hard to know exactly why the relatives of today’s sockeye went extinct, but Davis says the cooler conditions would have affected the productivity of the Pacific Ocean and the amount of rain feeding rivers that served as their spawning areas.

Another co-author, Brian Sidlauskas, says a fish the size of the spike-toothed salmon must have been targeted by predators such as killer whales or sharks.

“I like to think … it’s almost like a sledgehammer, these salmon swinging their head back and forth in order to fend off things that might want to feast on them,” he says.

Sidlauskas says analysis by the lead author of the paper, Kerin Claeson, found both male and female salmon had the “multi-functional” spike-tooth feature.

“That’s part of our reason for hypothesizing that this tooth is multi-functional … It could easily be for digging out nests,” he says.

“Think about how big the (nest) would have to be for an animal of this size, and then carving it out in what’s probably pretty shallow water; and so having an extra digging tool attached to your head could be really useful.”

Sidlauskas says the giant salmon help researchers understand the boundaries of what’s possible with the evolution of salmon, but they also capture the human imagination and a sense of wonder about what’s possible on Earth.

“I think it helps us value a little more what we do still have, or I hope that it does. That animal is no longer with us, but it is a product of the same biosphere that sustains us.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 24, 2024.

Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press

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Giant prehistoric salmon had tusk-like spikes used for defence, building nests: study

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A new paper says a giant salmon that lived five million years ago in the coastal waters of the Pacific Northwest used tusk-like spikes as defense mechanisms and for building nests to spawn.

The initial fossil discoveries of the 2.7-metre-long salmon in Oregon in the 1970s were incomplete and led researchers to suggest the fish had fang-like teeth.

The now-extinct fish was dubbed the “saber-tooth salmon,” but the study published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS One today renames it the “spike-toothed salmon” and says both males and females possessed the “multifunctional” feature.

Study co-author Edward Davis says the revelation about the tusk-like teeth came after the discovery of fossilized skulls at a site in Oregon in 2014.

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Davis, an associate professor in the department of earth sciences at the University of Oregon, says he was surprised to see the skulls had “sideways teeth.”

Contrary to the belief since the 1970s, he says the teeth couldn’t have been used for any kind of biting.

“That was definitely a surprising moment,” Davis says of the fossil discovery in 2014. “I realized that all of the artwork and all of the publicity materials … we had just made two months prior, for the new exhibit, were all out of date.”

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SpaceX sends 23 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit

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April 23 (UPI) — SpaceX launched 23 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit Tuesday evening from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Liftoff occurred at 6:17 EDT with a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sending the payload of 23 Starlink satellites into orbit.

The Falcon 9 rocket’s first-stage booster landed on an autonomous drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean after separating from the rocket’s second stage and its payload.

The entire mission was scheduled to take about an hour and 5 minutes to complete from launch to satellite deployment.

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The mission was the ninth flight for the first-stage booster that previously completed five Starlink satellite-deployment missions and three other missions.

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