So, About That "Everest From Orbit" Image ...

A few days back I posted an image that was purportedly a picture of Mt. Everest as seen from the International Space Station, citing The Atlantic as the source. Turns out, it wasn’t a photo of Everest at all and NASA is now admitted they made a mistake in identifying the world’s tallest mountain.

According to this story from the BBC, the mountain is actually Saser Muztagh, a collection of peaks located in the Karakoram Range in India. The tallest of those peaks is Saser Kangri I, which reaches a mere 7672 meters (25,171 feet) in height, well below Everest’s 8848 meter (29,029 ft) height.

The photo was taken by cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko while looking out one of the windows on the ISS. It isn’t clear how the image got mislabeled, but NASA has confirmed their error. They haven’t released any other images shot by Malenchenko, but I found the photo below on the space agency’s website, which is a confirmed shot of Everest from space. That one will have to do for now.

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Kraig Becker

Kraig is an outdoor and adventure travel writer based in Nashville, TN. Over the course of his career, he has contributed to numerous online and print outlets, including Popular Mechanics, Gear Junkie, Outside Online, National Geographic, Digital Trends, Business Insider, TripSavvy, about.com, and of course The Adventure Blog.