THE’Everestwith its 8,848.86 meters above sea level, is the highest peak in the world: unlike what one might think, however, the Himalayan mountain it is not the point on Earth “closest” to space and farthest from the center of the planet. This record in fact belongs to Chimborazo, a quiescent volcano in Ecuador.
But how is this possible? It seems like a paradox especially if we consider that Chimborazo (6,268 meters above sea level) is only the 37th highest mountain in the Andes, South America.
To understand why we must first remember that the Earth is not a perfect sphere because of Earth’s rotational motion. Our Planet, in fact, rotates on itself in 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds: this rotation generates a centrifugal force that pushes the mass outwards. The force is maximum at the equator (where the rotation speed is greatest, around 1600 km/h), while it is zero at the poles: the result is one flattening at the South and North poles and a bulge in the equatorial areawhich appears more prominent. Not surprisingly, the Earth’s radius at the equator it is 6378 km, while at the poles it is 6356 km, with a difference of 22 km.
Precisely because of the equatorial bulge of the Earth, the top of the Chimborazo – which lies almost directly on the equator, at a latitude of about 1° South – is the furthest point from the center of the Earth (6384.4 km): this also makes it the point “closest to the stars”, or rather, more stretched out towards space and, consequently, closer to the Sun.
For comparison, l‘Everest is located quite far from the equatorbeing located between Nepal and China at a latitude of 27° North. This causes the imaginary line connecting it to the center of the Earth is slightly less long (6382.3 km) than that relating to Chimborazo.
In other words, the top of Chimborazo is approx 2,100 meters further from the center of the Earth than the summit of Everest. Everest, however, remains the highest peak in the world when measured from sea level.
