Soon, a team of researchers take on a seemingly impossible task: to measure Mount Everest.
Mount Everest is a mountain in Nepal and China. It’s the world’s tallest mountain, peaking at a height of 29,029 feet, over five miles high. Well, that’s what we think, at least. It hasn’t been measured since 1955. In April 2015, an earthquake hit Nepal The damage may have shrunk the mountain by up to three feet.
It will take roughly a month to collect the data needed. The mountain will be measured by GPS and also by triangulation, or measuring lengths on the ground and the angles of the mountain’s peaks. When the researchers have the information, it will take another few weeks to compile it before the findings can be presented.
There is some doubt in the scientific community that the mountain shrank at all. Some even speculate that it could have grown. It’s also important to remember that our measuring technology has vastly improved in the past sixty years. Soon we’ll know the true height of Mount Everest.