| Tenzing Montes | |
| Type: | Mountain range |
| Location: | Western Sputnik Planitia, Pluto |
| Coordinates: | -15.6°N 199°W |
| Coordinates Footnotes: | [1] |
| Peak: | (T2) |
| Discoverer: | New Horizons |
| Eponym: | Tenzing Norgay |
The Tenzing Montes (formerly Norgay Montes) are a range of icy mountains on Pluto, bordering the southwest region of Sputnik Planitia and the nearby Hillary Montes and Wright Mons. With peaks reaching 6.2km (03.9miles) in height, they are the highest mountain range on Pluto, and also the steepest, with a mean slope of 19.2 degrees.
The mountains, first viewed by the New Horizons spacecraft on 14 July 2015, and announced by NASA on 15 July 2015, are named after the Nepalese mountaineer Tenzing Norgay, who, along with Sir Edmund Hillary, made the first successful ascent of the highest peak on Earth, Mount Everest (29 May 1953).[2] The mountains were informally called Norgay Montes by the New Horizons team, but that name was later changed from Norgay to Tenzing.[3] On 7 September 2017, the name Tenzing Montes was officially approved together with the names of Tombaugh Regio and twelve other nearby surface features.
Several massifs within Tenzing Montes reach elevations of more than 4 km above the surrounding terrain. The table below is based on Table 3 in.
| Name of range | Peak name[4] | Location | Height (km, base-to-peak) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tenzing Montes | "T2" | -16.4°N 175.6°W | |
| Tenzing Montes | "T1" | -16°N 174.9°W | |
| Tenzing Montes | "T3" | -16.9°N 176.3°W | |
| Tenzing Montes | "T4" | -21.7°N 179.7°W | |
| Tenzing Montes (south) | "T11" | -19.5°N 179.2°W | |
| Tenzing Montes (south) | "T12" | -20.3°N 178.9°W | |
The Tenzing Montes rise up to 6.2km (03.9miles) high, about twice as high as the Hillary Montes. In comparison, Mount Everest rises 4.6km (02.9miles) base-to-peak (though to an elevation of 8.8km (05.5miles) above sea level).[5]