If you want, there will soon be a Chomolungma/Sagarmatha in outer space as well. The Tibetan and Nepalese names of the highest mountain in the world are in common on a NASA shortlist. The American space agency is looking for a nickname for an object in space that now bears the unadorned name “2014 MU69”. At the beginning of 2019, the NASA space probe “New Horizons” will fly past the object at a distance of about 3,000 kilometers, sending data to earth.

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When I was a small boy I wanted to be an astronaut. Maybe the reason was that the first moon landing in 1969 was at the same time my first television experience. Then I was six years old. In our neighbors’ house several families were jostling around a small black and white television, which was the only one in our street block. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins – the astronauts of Apollo 11 were my heroes. I dreamed of jumping over the lunar surface by myself, watching the earth as a blue ball in the distance. Until today the universe has not lost for me anything of the fascination that I already felt as a child.

The US space agency NASA is not just looking into space, but also from there to our good old earth. It has now published an article with the most important facts about the 14 eight-thousanders adding satellite images of the highest mountains. I want to share these pictures with you – to make you feel a bit like astronauts.

P.S. This time I have sorted the mountains not by altitude but by their fatality rates (look at the percentage).