Ecuador’s Chimborazo volcano steals a world record from Mount Everest

The celebration of the 280th anniversary of the first geodesic mission has provided an opportunity to commemorate France and Ecuador’s shared history, the first event of which was the expedition to Chimborazo.
One of the more curious events will be a 17th-century-style dinner as might have been enjoyed by the members of the first expedition when they arrived in Ecuador 1736.
The measurements, which have a 10-centimeter margin of error, show that the volcano is exactly 6,384,415.98 meters from the center of the Earth, making Chimborazo the nearest place on the planet to the Sun.
Mount Everest in Nepal is officially measured at 8,848 meters high, although GPS data shows it is actually 8,846.4 meters high.
To put the theory to the test, an expedition of French and Ecuadorian scientists climbed Mount Chimborazo, Ecuador’s highest mountain, in February and placed a GPS device at the summit with a 60-centimeter antenna that receives signals from 15 satellites from different countries.

Fuente: http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/04/07/inenglish/1460035590_052885.html