The Tenzing Montes (formerly Norgay Montes) are a range of icy mountains on
Pluto
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of Trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Su ...
,
bordering the southwest region of
Sputnik Planitia
Sputnik Planitia (formerly Sputnik Planum) is a large, partially glaciated basin on Pluto. About in size, Sputnik Planitia is partially submerged in large, bright glaciers of solid nitrogen, nitrogen ice. Named after Earth's first artificial s ...
and the nearby
Hillary Montes
The Hillary Montes or (less officially, Hillary Mountains) are a mountain range that reach above the surface of the dwarf planet Pluto. They are located northwest of Tenzing Montes in the southwest border area of Sputnik Planitia in the sout ...
and Wright Mons.
With peaks reaching in height, they are the highest mountain range on Pluto, and also the steepest, with a mean slope of 19.2 degrees.
Naming
The mountains, first viewed by the ''New Horizons'' spacecraft on 14 July 2015, and announced by NASA on 15 July 2015, are named after the
Nepal
Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...
ese mountaineer
Tenzing Norgay
Tenzing Norgay (; ''tendzin norgyé''; May 1914 – 9 May 1986), born Namgyal Wangdi, and also referred to as Sherpa Tenzing, was a Nepalese-Indian Sherpa mountaineer. On 29 May 1953, he and Edmund Hillary were the first confirmed to ...
, who, along with
Sir Edmund Hillary, made the first successful ascent of the highest peak on
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...
,
Mount Everest
Mount Everest (), known locally as Sagarmatha in Nepal and Qomolangma in Tibet, is Earth's highest mountain above sea level. It lies in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas and marks part of the China–Nepal border at it ...
(29 May 1953).
The mountains were informally called ''Norgay Montes'' by the ''New Horizons'' team, but that name was later changed from ''Norgay'' to ''Tenzing''.
[Both ''Tenzing'' and ''Norgay'' are given names, but ''Norgay'' is often mistaken for a surname.] On 7 September 2017, the name ''Tenzing Montes'' was officially approved together with the names of
Tombaugh Regio and twelve other nearby surface features.
Highest peaks
Several
massif
A massif () is a principal mountain mass, such as a compact portion of a mountain range, containing one or more summits (e.g. France's Massif Central). In mountaineering literature, ''massif'' is frequently used to denote the main mass of an ...
s within Tenzing Montes reach elevations of more than 4 km above the surrounding terrain. The table below is based on Table 3 in.
The Tenzing Montes rise up to high, about twice as high as the
Hillary Montes
The Hillary Montes or (less officially, Hillary Mountains) are a mountain range that reach above the surface of the dwarf planet Pluto. They are located northwest of Tenzing Montes in the southwest border area of Sputnik Planitia in the sout ...
.
In comparison,
Mount Everest
Mount Everest (), known locally as Sagarmatha in Nepal and Qomolangma in Tibet, is Earth's highest mountain above sea level. It lies in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas and marks part of the China–Nepal border at it ...
rises
base-to-peak (though to an elevation of above sea level).
[''Mount Everest'' (1:50,000 scale map), prepared under the direction of Bradford Washburn for the Boston Museum of Science, the Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research, and the ]National Geographic Society
The National Geographic Society, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest nonprofit scientific and educational organizations in the world.
Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, natural sc ...
, 1991,
Gallery
Videos
See also
*
Geography of Pluto
*
Geology of Pluto
*
List of geological features on Pluto
*
List of tallest mountains in the Solar System
This is a list of the tallest mountains in the Solar System. This list includes peaks on all celestial bodies where significant mountains have been detected. For some celestial bodies, different peaks are given across different types of measurem ...
Notes
References
{{Pluto
Extraterrestrial mountains
Surface features of Pluto
Tenzing Norgay
Geography of Pluto
Articles containing video clips