Chimborazo Volcano - the highest point of the Earth, if you count from the center of the planet

Everyone knows that Everest is the highest point of our planet. But ... in our world everything is relative, and even the status of the highest peak in the world. It turns out that if you count not from the sea level, but from the center of our planet, then the highest point of the Earth will be Mount Chimboraso, whose height is only 6 310 meters. How is this possible?

The earth has a spherical shape, but it is very approximate. From a scientific point of view, our planet has the shape of a geoid. This term was specially introduced to refer to the shape of our planet, since it does not resemble any of the well-known figures, and even it differs significantly from an ellipsoid.

The earth is as if flattened from the poles, which is the result of rotation. For this reason, the equatorial radius exceeds the polar one - 6,378.1 kilometers against 6,356.8 kilometers. But that is not all. As modern measurements show, the surface of our planet has a much more complex shape, in which hollows and elevations are traced that do not correspond to the averaged shape of an ellipsoid.

It is for this reason that it turned out that the altitude of many mountains on our planet diverges from the same data, but obtained by measuring the distance from the center of the planet.

Chimborazo Volcano, Ecuador

Now move to the Ecuadorian Andes. Despite being close to the equator, the Chimborazo volcano is covered with eternal ice. Its height relative to sea level is 6 310 meters. But, according to the data obtained by the joint Franco-Ecuadorian expedition, it is Chimborazo that is the highest point of the planet, when measured from the center of the Earth, and surpasses the famous Everest in this indicator. The data obtained using the navigation satellite system show that the distance from the center of the planet to the peak of Chimboraso is 6,384.4 kilometers, while the same indicator for Everest is only 6,381 kilometers.