Mount Everest proven NOT highest point on Earth. This is
Thursday, May 5, 2016, 5:00 - A team of scientists from Ecuador and France have teamed-up to prove that the highest point on planet earth is not Mt. Everest in Nepal, but rather the summit of Chimborazo, a massive volcano located in central Ecuador.
Recent GPS measurements performed by a joint team from the Geographic Military Institute (Ecuador) and the Development Research Institute (France) have some shown that Chimborazo rises 20.548 feet above sea level, actually 16.4 feet less than previously thought.
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For those who have made, or are planning on making it sometime soon to what is considered the ¨roof of the world, you have nothing to worry about because at 29.029 feet, Mount Everest is still the highest point on earth above sea level.
However, when the elevation measurement is taken from the center of Earth, the story changes. In this case, the summit of Mount Chimborazo is 3.966,8 miles away from Earths center point, while that of Mount Everest is not as far and lies 3.965,5 miles away.
So many of you are probably wondering why if the summit of Mount Everest is considerably higher than that of Mount Chimborazo, it is not as far from the center of our planet. The explanation is fairly simple, and it is related to the shape of Earth. Although we are used to seeing the earth depicted as a perfect sphere, like a ball shaped planet, in reality it is a spheroid, but with it´s shape irregularities due to gravity and rotation, it flattens at the poles and bulges at the equator and is often referred to as a geoid.
Actually the radius of the Earth is a little over 13 miles longer when measured at the equator compared to the poles. So given the same elevation, any mountain located near the equator will always be higher than one located north or south of the 0 degree latitude mark. Chimborazo lies 1º 28' S, while Everest is further from the equator at 29º 59' N. This explains why the Andes volcano is around 1.5 miles higher from the center of the Earth than the mythical Himalayan Mountain.
Even more shocking that finding out the Mount Everest is not officially the point od the Earth that stands out the most is that in this battle for first and second highest point from the center of the earth, Everest is not even second best. At only 131 feet behind Chimborazo´s height comes another nearby mountain located 9º 30' S, the Nevado Huascaran in Peru.
