Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Wednesday 18 december 2019

Science Says: Diet plays big role in how huge whales can get

By MALCOLM RITTER whale” when hunting the
AP Science Writer way it does, said Nicholas
NEW YORK (AP) — Whales Pyenson of the Smithson-
are big, but why aren’t ian’s National Museum of
they bigger? A new study Natural History, who was
says it’s basically about part of the research.
how many calories they The blue whale can be
can take in. bigger because it feeds in
That’s the conclusion of re- a much different and high-
searchers who used small ly efficient way, the study
boats to chase down 300 says. It opens its mouth
whales of various species wide and engulfs an im-
around the world. They mense volume of water,
reached out with a long even bigger than its body
pole to attach sensors to size, as it swims along.
the creatures with suction Then it closes its mouth
cups, allowing them to and strains the water out
record what the animals through a sieve-like filter,
were doing on their dives which traps huge amounts
for food. of tiny shrimp-like creatures
The results suggest body called krill.
size is controlled by how That “allows them to ex-
whales capture prey and ploit a very large prey re-
how much food is avail- source that’s very rich in
able, researchers report- a small amount of time,”
ed Thursday in the journal said Jeremy Goldbogen of This November 2019 photo provided by Elliott Hazen shows a blue whale being tagged in
Science. Stanford University, anoth- eastern Pacific.
The study included 90 blue er researcher. “They get a Associated Press
whales, the biggest animal huge bang for the buck.”
ever to live. Size estimates So why aren’t they even the University of California, prehensive look across big she said.“You try to go out
vary, but the American Ce- bigger than they are? Santa Cruz, who did not whale species, and the and put a tiny tag on the
tacean Society says blue Maybe blue whales are participate in the research. success in collecting the back of the biggest animal
whales can grow about limited by the seasonal The study provided a com- data “boggles the mind,” in the world,” she said.q
100 feet (30 meters) long nature of the most nutri-
and weigh more than 100 tious krill patches, which
tons (91,000 kilograms). The grow gigantic and dense Europe postpones launch of
study also included the in the summer, Goldbogen
biggest whale with teeth, said. And calculations indi- planet mission, seeks Soyuz fix
the sperm whale, which cate that to sustain a blue
can stretch about 60 feet whale that’s 115 feet (35 SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico study planets in other so- “the Soyuz launcher’s au-
(18 meters) long, the group meters) long, “you’d need (AP) — European space lar systems shortly before it tomated sequence was
says. a density of prey that is just officials on Tuesday post- was due to blast off. interrupted at 1 hour 25
When toothed whales not seen anywhere in the poned the launch of The European Space minutes before liftoff.”
hunt, they capture one world,” Pyenson said. a three-year mission to Agency announced that The launcher was put into
prey at a time, seeking But maybe there’s also the launch from Kourou, a safe standby mode, it
them out in the murky some kind of limiting factor French Guiana, of the added.
depths with a sonar-like in how their bodies func- Characterising ExOPlanets “The new target launch
detection. The study found tion, Goldbogen said. He Satellite (CHEOPS) mission date will be announced
that as body size increases noted a recent study that would be delayed by at as soon as possible,” the
in such whales, they be- found a blue whale’s heart least a day. It had been agency said in a state-
come progressively less ef- beats up to 37 times a min- scheduled for 0854 GMT ment.
ficient as they hunt — they ute after deep dives, and (3:54 a.m. EST). The mission will focus on
recover fewer calories that appears to be about ESA Director of Science 100 of the more than
from their meals per calorie as fast as the organ can Guenther Hasinger tweet- 4,000 extrasolar planets —
burned in each dive. That pump. ed that “a software error ones beyond our own so-
results from limits on avail- Another limiting factor in the Fregat upper stage” lar system — discovered
ability of prey. could be a whale’s ability of the Soyuz rocket was re- so far, partly to determine
“It looks like you cannot be to process the food it takes sponsible for the postpone- if there’s a possibility of an
much bigger than a sperm in, said Terrie Williams of ment. Earth-like planet capable
“With this complex mission, of sustaining life, Swiss
In this photo taken on
Dec. 6, 2019 and provided we will not take any risks,” astronomer and Nobel
by the European Space he added, advising people Physics Prize winner Didier
Agency (ESA), the Souyz to “keep fingers crossed for Queloz, who heads the
Arianespace System for (a launch) tomorrow” at CHEOPS science team,
Auxiliary Payloads (ASAP-S), the same time. told The Associated Press.
enclosing CHEOPS and Europe’s Arianespace, “We are one planetary
supporting the three
Cubesats, is lifted from its which has been operating system among many,”
stand, inside the High Bay Russian Soyuz rockets from he said. “It’s all about our
of the Spaceport payload Kourou since 2011, said place in the universe and
facility. during the countdown that trying to understand it.”q
Associated Press