1.
Tombaugh Regio
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Tombaugh Regio /ˈtɒmbaʊ ˈrɛdʒi. oʊ/, nicknamed The Heart after its shape, is the largest bright surface feature of the dwarf planet Pluto. It is just north of the equator, to the northeast of Cthulhu Regio and to the northwest of Krun Macula and its western lobe, a 1000 km-wide plain of nitrogen and other ices, is named Sputnik Planitia. The eastern lobe is thought to consist of high-albedo uplands coated by nitrogen transported through the atmosphere from Sputnik Planitia, some of this nitrogen ice then returns to Sputnik Planitia via glacial flow. It is named after Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluto, Tombaugh Regio is a large, light-colored region about 1,590 km across. The two lobes of the feature are geologically distinct, the western lobe, Sputnik Planitia, is smoother than the eastern, and they are of slightly different colors. Early speculation was that the western lobe may be an impact crater filled with nitrogen snow. Bright spots within the region were initially speculated to be mountain peaks, photos, released on 15 July 2015, revealed 3,400 m mountains made of water ice in the feature, they also showed no craters in this same region. The surface of Sputnik Planitia is divided into polygonal convection cells and is less than 10 million years old, indicating that Pluto is geologically active. The feature had been identified as a spot for six decades prior to the New Horizons flyby. Over these six decades the spot had been observed to be dimming, Tombaugh Regio was first identified in the initial image of Pluto returned after the New Horizons probe recovered from an anomaly that temporarily sent it into safe mode. NASA initially referred to it as a heart in reference to its overall shape, on 15 July 2015, the region was named Tombaugh Regio by the New Horizons team in honor of astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluto, regio being Latin for region. Some people find the feature also resembles the Disney character Pluto, the Walt Disney Company acknowledged this perceived likeness in a short animation. Geography of Pluto List of geological features on Pluto Media related to Tombaugh Regio at Wikimedia Commons
2.
Pluto
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Pluto is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond Neptune. It was the first Kuiper belt object to be discovered, Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 and was originally considered to be the ninth planet from the Sun. After 1992, its planethood was questioned following the discovery of objects of similar size in the Kuiper belt. In 2005, Eris, which is 27% more massive than Pluto, was discovered and this led the International Astronomical Union to define the term planet formally in 2006, during their 26th General Assembly. That definition excluded Pluto and reclassified it as a dwarf planet, Pluto is the largest and second-most-massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System and the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object directly orbiting the Sun. It is the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume but is less massive than Eris, like other Kuiper belt objects, Pluto is primarily made of ice and rock and is relatively small—about one-sixth the mass of the Moon and one-third its volume. It has an eccentric and inclined orbit during which it ranges from 30 to 49 astronomical units or AU from the Sun. This means that Pluto periodically comes closer to the Sun than Neptune, light from the Sun takes about 5.5 hours to reach Pluto at its average distance. Pluto has five moons, Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos. Pluto and Charon are sometimes considered a system because the barycenter of their orbits does not lie within either body. The IAU has not formalized a definition for binary dwarf planets, on July 14,2015, the New Horizons spacecraft became the first spacecraft to fly by Pluto. During its brief flyby, New Horizons made detailed measurements and observations of Pluto, on October 25,2016, at 05,48 pm ET, the last bit of data was received from New Horizons from its close encounter with Pluto on July 14,2015. In the 1840s, Urbain Le Verrier used Newtonian mechanics to predict the position of the then-undiscovered planet Neptune after analysing perturbations in the orbit of Uranus. Subsequent observations of Neptune in the late 19th century led astronomers to speculate that Uranuss orbit was being disturbed by another planet besides Neptune, by 1909, Lowell and William H. Pickering had suggested several possible celestial coordinates for such a planet. Lowell and his observatory conducted his search until his death in 1916, unknown to Lowell, his surveys had captured two faint images of Pluto on March 19 and April 7,1915, but they were not recognized for what they were. There are fourteen other known prediscovery observations, with the oldest made by the Yerkes Observatory on August 20,1909. Percivals widow, Constance Lowell, entered into a legal battle with the Lowell Observatory over her late husbands legacy. Tombaughs task was to image the night sky in pairs of photographs, then examine each pair
3.
Edmund Hillary
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Sir Edmund Percival Ed Hillary KG ONZ KBE was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reached the summit of Mount Everest and they were part of the ninth British expedition to Everest, led by John Hunt. TIME magazine named Hillary one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, Hillary became interested in mountaineering while in secondary school. He made his first major climb in 1939, reaching the summit of Mount Ollivier and he served in the Royal New Zealand Air Force as a navigator during World War II. Prior to the 1953 Everest expedition, Hillary had been part of the British reconnaissance expedition to the mountain in 1951 as well as an attempt to climb Cho Oyu in 1952. As part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition he reached the South Pole overland in 1958 and he subsequently reached the North Pole, making him the first person to reach both poles and summit Everest. Following his ascent of Everest, Hillary devoted most of his life to helping the Sherpa people of Nepal through the Himalayan Trust, through his efforts, many schools and hospitals were built in Nepal. Hillary was born to Percival Augustus and Gertrude Hillary in Auckland, New Zealand and his family moved to Tuakau in 1920, after his father, who served at Gallipoli in the 15th Regiment, was allocated land there. Hillarys grandparents were early settlers in northern Wairoa in the century, having emigrated from Yorkshire. Hillary was educated at Tuakau Primary School and then Auckland Grammar School and he finished primary school two years early and at high school achieved average marks. Hillary was initially smaller than his peers there and very shy, so he took refuge in his books and his daily train journey to and from high school was over two hours each way, during which he regularly used the time to read. He gained confidence after he learned to box, at 16, his interest in climbing was sparked during a school trip to Mount Ruapehu. Though gangly at 6 ft 5 in and uncoordinated, he found that he was strong and had greater endurance than many of his tramping companions. He studied mathematics and science at the Auckland University College and in 1939 completed his first major climb, reaching the summit of Mount Ollivier, with his brother Rex, Hillary became a beekeeper, a summer occupation that allowed him to pursue climbing in the winter. He joined the Radiant Living Tramping Club, where a holistic health philosophy developed by the health advocate Herbert Sutcliffe was taught, Hillary developed his love for the outdoors on tours with the club through the Waitakere Ranges. His interest in beekeeping later led Hillary to commission Michael Ayrton to cast a sculpture in the shape of honeycomb. This was placed in Hillarys New Zealand garden, where his bees took it over as a hive and filled it with honey and their young. Upon the outbreak of World War II, Hillary applied to join the Royal New Zealand Air Force but withdrew the application before it was considered, because he was harassed by religious conscience
4.
Dwarf planet
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A dwarf planet is a planetary-mass object that is neither a planet nor a natural satellite. The International Astronomical Union currently recognizes five dwarf planets, Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, another hundred or so known objects in the Solar System are suspected to be dwarf planets. Individual astronomers recognize several of these, and in August 2011 Mike Brown published a list of 390 candidate objects, Stern states that there are more than a dozen known dwarf planets. Only two of these bodies, Ceres and Pluto, have observed in enough detail to demonstrate that they actually fit the IAUs definition. The IAU accepted Eris as a dwarf planet because it is more massive than Pluto and they subsequently decided that unnamed trans-Neptunian objects with an absolute magnitude brighter than +1 are to be named under the assumption that they are dwarf planets. The classification of bodies in other systems with the characteristics of dwarf planets has not been addressed. Starting in 1801, astronomers discovered Ceres and other bodies between Mars and Jupiter which were for some decades considered to be planets. Between then and around 1851, when the number of planets had reached 23, astronomers started using the asteroid for the smaller bodies. With the discovery of Pluto in 1930, most astronomers considered the Solar System to have nine planets and it was roughly one-twentieth the mass of Mercury, which made Pluto by far the smallest planet. Although it was more than ten times as massive as the largest object in the asteroid belt, Ceres. In the 1990s, astronomers began to find objects in the region of space as Pluto. Many of these shared several of Plutos key orbital characteristics, and Pluto started being seen as the largest member of a new class of objects and this led some astronomers to stop referring to Pluto as a planet. Several terms, including subplanet and planetoid, started to be used for the now known as dwarf planets. By 2005, three trans-Neptunian objects comparable in size to Pluto had been reported and it became clear that either they would also have to be classified as planets, or Pluto would have to be reclassified. Astronomers were also confident that more objects as large as Pluto would be discovered, Eris was discovered in January 2005, it was thought to be slightly larger than Pluto, and some reports informally referred to it as the tenth planet. As a consequence, the became a matter of intense debate during the IAU General Assembly in August 2006. The IAUs initial draft proposal included Charon, Eris, and Ceres in the list of planets, dropping Charon from the list, the new proposal also removed Pluto, Ceres, and Eris, because they have not cleared their orbits. The IAUs final Resolution 5A preserved this three-category system for the bodies orbiting the Sun
5.
Sputnik Planitia
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Sputnik Planitia /ˈspʌtnɪk pləˈnɪʃiə/, originally Sputnik Planum, is a high-albedo ice-covered basin on Pluto, about 1,050 by 800 km in size. It lies mostly in the hemisphere, but extends across the equator. Much of it has a surface of irregular polygons separated by troughs, the polygons are on average about 33 km across. In some cases troughs are populated by blocky mountains or hills, Sputnik Planitia constitutes the western lobe of the heart-shaped Tombaugh Regio. There appear to be wind streaks on the surface evidence of sublimation. The dark streaks are a few kilometers long and all aligned in the same direction, the basin also contains pits that have possibly formed by sublimation. Sputnik Planitia is named after Earths first artificial satellite, the planitia has no craters that were detectable by New Horizons, leading to the conclusion that its surface must be less than 10 million years old. The ice composing the basin is thought to consist primarily of ice, with smaller fractions of carbon monoxide and methane ice. At Plutos ambient temperature of 38 K, nitrogen and carbon monoxide ices are denser and much less rigid water ice, making glacial-like flows possible. Sputnik Planitia may have originated as a basin that subsequently collected volatile ices. Alternatively, it has suggested that the accumulation of ices in this location depressed the surface there. The accumulation of several kilometers of ice in the basin was in part a consequence of its higher surface pressure. The positive temperature gradient of Plutos atmosphere contributes to making a topographic depression a cold trap, a high seasonal thermal inertia of Plutos surface is an important driver of deposition of nitrogen ice at low latitudes. These latitudes receive less insolation than Plutos polar regions due to its high obliquity. However, other effects of an event could have also contributed to such an anomaly. A positive gravity anomaly could have caused polar wander, reorienting the spin axis of Pluto to put the planitia near the Pluto-Charon tidal axis, Sputnik Planitia is presently close to the anti-Charon point on Pluto, a result that has less than a 5% probability of arising by chance. Gradual freezing of such an ocean, in combination with polar wander, convection cells have about 100 m of vertical relief, with the highest points being at their centers. Modeling of nitrogen ice convection cells suggests a depth of one tenth their width, or 3–4 km for most of the planitia
6.
NASA
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President Dwight D. Eisenhower established NASA in 1958 with a distinctly civilian orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29,1958, disestablishing NASAs predecessor, the new agency became operational on October 1,1958. Since that time, most US space exploration efforts have led by NASA, including the Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, the agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for unmanned NASA launches. NASA shares data with various national and international such as from the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite. Since 2011, NASA has been criticized for low cost efficiency, from 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics had been experimenting with rocket planes such as the supersonic Bell X-1. In the early 1950s, there was challenge to launch a satellite for the International Geophysical Year. An effort for this was the American Project Vanguard, after the Soviet launch of the worlds first artificial satellite on October 4,1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. This led to an agreement that a new federal agency based on NACA was needed to conduct all non-military activity in space. The Advanced Research Projects Agency was created in February 1958 to develop technology for military application. On July 29,1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, a NASA seal was approved by President Eisenhower in 1959. Elements of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and the United States Naval Research Laboratory were incorporated into NASA, earlier research efforts within the US Air Force and many of ARPAs early space programs were also transferred to NASA. In December 1958, NASA gained control of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA has conducted many manned and unmanned spaceflight programs throughout its history. Some missions include both manned and unmanned aspects, such as the Galileo probe, which was deployed by astronauts in Earth orbit before being sent unmanned to Jupiter, the experimental rocket-powered aircraft programs started by NACA were extended by NASA as support for manned spaceflight. This was followed by a space capsule program, and in turn by a two-man capsule program. This goal was met in 1969 by the Apollo program, however, reduction of the perceived threat and changing political priorities almost immediately caused the termination of most of these plans. NASA turned its attention to an Apollo-derived temporary space laboratory, to date, NASA has launched a total of 166 manned space missions on rockets, and thirteen X-15 rocket flights above the USAF definition of spaceflight altitude,260,000 feet. The X-15 was an NACA experimental rocket-powered hypersonic research aircraft, developed in conjunction with the US Air Force, the design featured a slender fuselage with fairings along the side containing fuel and early computerized control systems
7.
New Zealand
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New Zealand /njuːˈziːlənd/ is an island nation in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses—the North Island, or Te Ika-a-Māui, and the South Island, or Te Waipounamu—and around 600 smaller islands. New Zealand is situated some 1,500 kilometres east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly 1,000 kilometres south of the Pacific island areas of New Caledonia, Fiji, because of its remoteness, it was one of the last lands to be settled by humans. During its long period of isolation, New Zealand developed a distinct biodiversity of animal, fungal, the countrys varied topography and its sharp mountain peaks, such as the Southern Alps, owe much to the tectonic uplift of land and volcanic eruptions. New Zealands capital city is Wellington, while its most populous city is Auckland, sometime between 1250 and 1300 CE, Polynesians settled in the islands that later were named New Zealand and developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight New Zealand, in 1840, representatives of Britain and Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, which declared British sovereignty over the islands. In 1841, New Zealand became a colony within the British Empire, today, the majority of New Zealands population of 4.7 million is of European descent, the indigenous Māori are the largest minority, followed by Asians and Pacific Islanders. Reflecting this, New Zealands culture is derived from Māori and early British settlers. The official languages are English, Māori and New Zealand Sign Language, New Zealand is a developed country and ranks highly in international comparisons of national performance, such as health, education, economic freedom and quality of life. Since the 1980s, New Zealand has transformed from an agrarian, Queen Elizabeth II is the countrys head of state and is represented by a governor-general. In addition, New Zealand is organised into 11 regional councils and 67 territorial authorities for local government purposes, the Realm of New Zealand also includes Tokelau, the Cook Islands and Niue, and the Ross Dependency, which is New Zealands territorial claim in Antarctica. New Zealand is a member of the United Nations, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Pacific Islands Forum, and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sighted New Zealand in 1642 and called it Staten Landt, in 1645, Dutch cartographers renamed the land Nova Zeelandia after the Dutch province of Zeeland. British explorer James Cook subsequently anglicised the name to New Zealand, Aotearoa is the current Māori name for New Zealand. It is unknown whether Māori had a name for the country before the arrival of Europeans. Māori had several names for the two main islands, including Te Ika-a-Māui for the North Island and Te Waipounamu or Te Waka o Aoraki for the South Island. Early European maps labelled the islands North, Middle and South, in 1830, maps began to use North and South to distinguish the two largest islands and by 1907, this was the accepted norm. The New Zealand Geographic Board discovered in 2009 that the names of the North Island and South Island had never been formalised and this set the names as North Island or Te Ika-a-Māui, and South Island or Te Waipounamu
8.
Mountaineering
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The term mountaineering describes the sport of mountain climbing, including ski mountaineering. Hiking in the mountains can also be a form of mountaineering when it involves scrambling, or short stretches of the more basic grades of rock climbing. All require experience, athletic ability, and technical knowledge to maintain safety, mountaineering is often called Alpinism, especially in European languages, which implies climbing with difficulty such high and often snow and ice-covered mountains as the Alps. A mountaineer with such great skill is called an Alpinist, historically, many cultures have harbored superstitions about mountains, which they often regarded as sacred due to their proximity with heaven, such as Mount Olympus for the Ancient Greeks. In 1492 Antoine de Ville, lord of Domjulien and Beaupré, was the first to ascend the Mont Aiguille, in France, with a team, using ladders. It appears to be the first recorded climb of any technical difficulty, in 1573 Francesco De Marchi and Francesco Di Domenico ascended Corno Grande, the highest peak in the Apennine Mountains. During the Enlightenment, as a product of the new spirit of curiosity for the natural world, in 1741 Richard Pococke and William Windham made a historic visit to Chamonix. By the early 19th century many of the peaks were reached, including the Grossglockner in 1800, the Ortler in 1804, the Jungfrau in 1811, the Finsteraarhorn in 1812. In 1808 Marie Paradis became the first female to climb Mont Blanc and this inaugurated what became known as the Golden age of alpinism, with the first mountaineering club - the Alpine Club - being founded in 1857. Well-known guides of the era include Christian Almer, Jakob Anderegg, Melchior Anderegg, J. J. Bennen, Michel Croz, in the early years of the golden age, scientific pursuits were intermixed with the sport, such as by the physicist John Tyndall. In the later years, it shifted to a more competitive orientation as pure sportsmen came to dominate the London-based Alpine Club and this ascent is generally regarded as marking the end of the mountaineering golden age. By this point the sport of mountaineering had largely reached its modern form, with a body of professional guides, equipment, mountaineering in the Americas became popular in the 1800s. In North America, Pikes Peak in the Colorado Rockies was first climbed by Edwin James, though lower than Pikes Peak, the heavily glaciated Fremont Peak in Wyoming was thought to be the tallest mountain in the Rockies when it was first climbed by John C. Frémont and two others in 1842, pico de Orizaba, the tallest peak in Mexico and third tallest in North America, was first climbed by U. S. military personnel which included William F. Raynolds and a half dozen other climbers in 1848. Heavily glaciated and more technical climbs in North American were not achieved until the late 19th, in 1897 Mount Saint Elias on the Alaska-Yukon border was summitted by the Duke of the Abruzzi and party. But it was not until 1913 that Mount Mckinley, the tallest peak in North America was successfully climbed by Hudson Stuck, Mount Logan, the tallest peak in Canada was first summitted by a half dozen climbers in 1925 in an expedition that took more than two months. In 1879-1880 the exploration of the highest Andes in South America began when English mountaineer Edward Whymper climbed Chimborazo, the summit of Aconcagua was finally reached on January 14,1897 by Swiss mountaineer Matthias Zurbriggen during an expedition led by Edward FitzGerald that began in December 1896. The Andes of Bolivia were first explored by Sir William Martin Conway in 1898 and it took until the late 19th century for European explorers to penetrate Africa
9.
Tenzing Norgay
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Tenzing Norgay OSN GM, born Namgyal Wangdi and often referred to as Sherpa Tenzing, was a Nepali Sherpa mountaineer. Among the most famous climbers in history, he was the first individual known to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Time named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, there are conflicting accounts of Norgays early life. The account he gave in his autobiography, accepted for years, is that he was a Sherpa born and raised in Tengboche, Khumbu. In an interview with All India Radio in 1985, Tenzing Norgay said that his parents came from Tibet, Khumbu lies near Mount Everest, which the Tibetans and Sherpas call Chomolungma, which in Standard Tibetan means Holy Mother, or the goddess of the summit. Norgay was a Nepalese Buddhist, Buddhism is the religion of the Sherpas. His exact date of birth is unknown, but he knew it was in late May by the weather, after his ascent of Everest on 29 May 1953, he decided to celebrate his birthday on that day thereafter. His year of birth, according to the Tibetan Calendar, was the Year of the Rabbit, Norgay was originally called Namgyal Wangdi, but as a child his name was changed on the advice of the head lama and founder of Rongbuk Monastery, Ngawang Tenzin Norbu. His father, a yak herder, was Ghang La Mingma, Norgay ran away from home twice in his teens, first to Kathmandu and later Darjeeling, India, at that time the starting point for most expeditions in eastern Himalaya. He was once sent to Tengboche Monastery to become a monk, at the age of 19, he eventually settled in the Sherpa community in Toonsong Busty in Darjeeling. Norgay received his first opportunity to join an Everest expedition when he was employed by Eric Shipton, as a 20-year-old his chance came when two of the others failed their medical tests. As a friend of Ang Tharkay, Norgay was quickly pushed forward, and his attractive smile caught the eye of Shipton, Norgay participated as a high-altitude porter in three official British attempts to climb Everest from the northern Tibetan side in the 1930s. On the 1936 expedition, he worked with John Morris and he also took part in other climbs in various parts of the Indian subcontinent. For a time in the early 1940s Norgay lived in the Princely State of Chitral as batman to a Major Chapman, Norgays first wife died during his tenure there and was buried there. In 1947, Norgay participated in a summit attempt of Everest. Canadian-born Earl Denman, Ange Dawa Sherpa, and Norgay entered Tibet illegally to attempt the mountain, Denman admitted defeat, and all three turned around and safely returned. In 1947, Norgay became a sirdar of a Swiss expedition for the first time, the expedition reached the main summit of Kedarnath at 22,769 feet in the western Garhwal Himalaya with Norgay being one of the summit party. Raymond Lambert and Tenzing Norgay were able to reach a height of about 8,595 metres on the southeast ridge, the expedition opened up a new route on Everest that was successfully climbed the next year
10.
Earth
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Earth, otherwise known as the World, or the Globe, is the third planet from the Sun and the only object in the Universe known to harbor life. It is the densest planet in the Solar System and the largest of the four terrestrial planets, according to radiometric dating and other sources of evidence, Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago. Earths gravity interacts with objects in space, especially the Sun. During one orbit around the Sun, Earth rotates about its axis over 365 times, thus, Earths axis of rotation is tilted, producing seasonal variations on the planets surface. The gravitational interaction between the Earth and Moon causes ocean tides, stabilizes the Earths orientation on its axis, Earths lithosphere is divided into several rigid tectonic plates that migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of Earths surface is covered with water, mostly by its oceans, the remaining 29% is land consisting of continents and islands that together have many lakes, rivers and other sources of water that contribute to the hydrosphere. The majority of Earths polar regions are covered in ice, including the Antarctic ice sheet, Earths interior remains active with a solid iron inner core, a liquid outer core that generates the Earths magnetic field, and a convecting mantle that drives plate tectonics. Within the first billion years of Earths history, life appeared in the oceans and began to affect the Earths atmosphere and surface, some geological evidence indicates that life may have arisen as much as 4.1 billion years ago. Since then, the combination of Earths distance from the Sun, physical properties, in the history of the Earth, biodiversity has gone through long periods of expansion, occasionally punctuated by mass extinction events. Over 99% of all species that lived on Earth are extinct. Estimates of the number of species on Earth today vary widely, over 7.4 billion humans live on Earth and depend on its biosphere and minerals for their survival. Humans have developed diverse societies and cultures, politically, the world has about 200 sovereign states, the modern English word Earth developed from a wide variety of Middle English forms, which derived from an Old English noun most often spelled eorðe. It has cognates in every Germanic language, and their proto-Germanic root has been reconstructed as *erþō, originally, earth was written in lowercase, and from early Middle English, its definite sense as the globe was expressed as the earth. By early Modern English, many nouns were capitalized, and the became the Earth. More recently, the name is simply given as Earth. House styles now vary, Oxford spelling recognizes the lowercase form as the most common, another convention capitalizes Earth when appearing as a name but writes it in lowercase when preceded by the. It almost always appears in lowercase in colloquial expressions such as what on earth are you doing, the oldest material found in the Solar System is dated to 4. 5672±0.0006 billion years ago. By 4. 54±0.04 Gya the primordial Earth had formed, the formation and evolution of Solar System bodies occurred along with the Sun
11.
Mount Everest
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Mount Everest, also known in Nepal as Sagarmāthā and in China as Chomolungma/珠穆朗玛峰, is Earths highest mountain. Its peak is 8,848 metres above sea level, Mount Everest is in the Mahalangur Range. The international border between China and Nepal runs across Everests summit point and its massif includes neighbouring peaks Lhotse,8,516 m, Nuptse,7,855 m, and Changtse,7,580 m. In 1856, the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India established the first published height of Everest, then known as Peak XV, at 8,840 m. The current official height of 8,848 m as recognised by China and Nepal was established by a 1955 Indian survey, in 2005, China remeasured the height of the mountain and got a result of 8844.43 m. An argument regarding the height between China and Nepal lasted five years from 2005 to 2010, China argued it should be measured by its rock height which is 8,844 m but Nepal said it should be measured by its snow height 8,848 m. In 2010, an agreement was reached by both sides that the height of Everest is 8,848 m and Nepal recognises Chinas claim that the rock height of Everest is 8,844 m. In 1865, Everest was given its official English name by the Royal Geographical Society upon a recommendation by Andrew Waugh, the British Surveyor General of India. As there appeared to be several different local names, Waugh chose to name the mountain after his predecessor in the post, Sir George Everest, Mount Everest attracts many climbers, some of them highly experienced mountaineers. There are two main climbing routes, one approaching the summit from the southeast in Nepal and the other from the north in Tibet, as of 2016 there are well over 200 corpses on the mountain, with some of them even serving as landmarks. The first recorded efforts to reach Everests summit were made by British mountaineers, with Nepal not allowing foreigners into the country at the time, the British made several attempts on the north ridge route from the Tibetan side. Tragedy struck on the descent from the North Col when seven porters were killed in an avalanche. They had been spotted high on the mountain that day but disappeared in the clouds, never to be seen again, Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary made the first official ascent of Everest in 1953 using the southeast ridge route. Tenzing had reached 8,595 m the previous year as a member of the 1952 Swiss expedition, the Chinese mountaineering team of Wang Fuzhou, Gonpo, and Qu Yinhua made the first reported ascent of the peak from the north ridge on 25 May 1960. In 1802, the British began the Great Trigonometric Survey of India to fix the locations, heights, starting in southern India, the survey teams moved northward using giant theodolites, each weighing 500 kg and requiring 12 men to carry, to measure heights as accurately as possible. They reached the Himalayan foothills by the 1830s, but Nepal was unwilling to allow the British to enter the country due to suspicions of political aggression, several requests by the surveyors to enter Nepal were turned down. The British were forced to continue their observations from Terai, a region south of Nepal which is parallel to the Himalayas, conditions in Terai were difficult because of torrential rains and malaria. Three survey officers died from malaria while two others had to retire because of failing health, nonetheless, in 1847, the British continued the survey and began detailed observations of the Himalayan peaks from observation stations up to 240 km distant
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