Sixty million years ago, when the Eurasian plate slammed into the Indian plate, a mountain range was born. Because these plates were of similar density, neither could sink below the other. The rocks had nowhere to go but up.
Now, the Himalayas host Earth’s tallest mountains. Mount Everest is the tallest, towering 5.4 miles (8.8 kilometers) above sea level. After Everest, the tallest is K2, which rises 5.3 miles (8.6 km) above Earth’s surface.
Could these mountains be any higher? For that matter, how high could any mountain grow on Earth? Theoretically, a mountain could be “quite a bit taller than Everest,” Gene Humphreys, a geophysicist at the University of Oregon, told Live Science. But first it would have to overcome a few challenges that many mountains face as they grow.
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