Highest, Tallest, and Closest to the Stars
Explanation:
Fans of planet Earth
probably recognize its highest mountain,
the Himalayan
Mount
Everest, on the left in this 3-panel skyscape of
The World at Night.
Shrouded in cloud
Everest's peak is at 8,848 meters (29,029 feet)
elevation above sea level.
In the middle panel, stars trail above
volcanic Mauna Kea
forming part of the island of Hawaii.
Festooned with astronomical observatories, its summit
lies a mere 4,168 meters above sea level.
Still, measured from its base starting below the ocean's surface, Mauna
Kea is over 10,000 meters tall, making it Earth's tallest mountain from
base to summit.
At right, beneath the arc of the Milky Way is the
Andean mountain Chimborazo in Ecuador.
The highest equatorial mountain, the Chimborazo volcano's
peak elevation is 6,268 meters above sea level.
But rotating
planet Earth is a
flattened sphere
(oblate
spheroid) in shape, its
equatorial diameter greater than its diameter measured pole to pole.
Sitting nearly on top of Earth's greatest equatorial bulge,
Chimborazo's peak is the farthest point on the
planet's surface from
the center, over 2,000 meters
farther from the center of the Earth than Everest's peak.
That makes Chimborazo's summit the place on Earth's surface
closest
to the stars.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
