Reels tagged #mountains
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Firsts
The first Everest summit came in 1953
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the top on 29 May 1953. They stayed about 15 minutes — the air up there holds a third of the oxygen at sea level.
Geography
Mount Everest grows a few millimetres every year
The Indian plate keeps pushing into Asia, lifting the Himalayas roughly 4 mm a year — faster than erosion can wear them down.
Geography
Everest is not the point closest to space
Because Earth bulges at the equator, Ecuador's Chimborazo summit sits about 2 km farther from the planet's centre than Everest.
Zoology
A snow leopard's tail is almost as long as its body
It works as a counterweight for leaps across cliffs, and wraps around the animal like a scarf against Himalayan cold.