Mount Everest would be the world's highest mountain -- if the Earth were a perfectly round sphere, which it isn't.

In our real world, the Earth's actual shape is that of an "oblate spheroid" that bulges at the Equator and is flattened at both Poles. The practical result of this deformity is an "equatorial bulge" that results in an object such as mountain or a person located at or near the Equator standing taller than an object or a person with a similar height located at either the North or South Pole.

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Now, the confusion as to the highest mountain comes from the word highest. Taking into account the Earth is an oblate spheroid means Mount Chimborazo, an inactive, icy volcano in Ecuador, is 1.5 miles (2.1 kilometers) higher than Mount Everest. Put in another way, Mount Chimborazo is 1.5 miles closer to outer space than Mount Everest.

That makes Mount Chimborazo the highest place on Earth and the closest to the Moon and outer space.

This seeming impossibility is possible because Chimborazo is located farther up on the equatorial bulge compared to Everest. This means that if you climbed to the top of Chimborazo, you'd be closer to outer space than you would be if you were on the top of Everest.

Put in another way, Chimborazo is the mountain farthest from the center of the Earth.

Measured at the equatorial bulge, Mount Everest won't even make it to the list of the 20 highest mountains in the world.

But measured from sea level, Everest is higher: that's 29,035 feet above sea level for Everest against 20,702 feet for Chimborazo. But the Earth isn't perfectly round, as you know by now.

The Earth's equatorial bulge is 42.7 km (26.5 miles) high. This refers to its diameter measured across the equatorial plane (12,756.3 km or 7,927 miles) is 42.7 km more than that measured between the poles (12,713.6 km or 7,900 miles).

Chimborazo is an ice-capped inactive volcano. It's a double volcano composed of one volcanic edifice on top of another.

Chimborazo is the highest mountain in Ecuador and the Andes north of Peru. 

TagsMount Chimborazo, Mount Everest, equatorial bulge