Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.Thousands of years ago in the Himalayas, a river ate a smaller river and gave an unexpected boost to Everest’s height, scientists have discovered.Mount Everest, or Chomolungma (“Goddess Mother of the World” in the Tibetan language), is one of Earth’s tallest mountains, standing 29,031.69 feet (8,848.86 meters) above sea level. Everest’s origin story began about 40 million to 50 million years ago, when landmasses on two slabs of Earth’s crust — the India Plate and the Eurasian Plate — collided in slow motion and crumpled the terrain, raising rocky peaks that over millions of years became the Himalayan mountain range. Everest is the highest of those peaks by about 820 feet (250 meters).That ancient collision is still lifting the Himalayas. However, recent GPS measurements showed that Everest was growing at a rate of about 0.08 inches (2 millimeters) per year, rather than the expected 0.04 inches (1 millimeter) per year; according to new research, this extra lift results from a more recent geological incident — an act of “piracy.”Around 89,000 years ago, the Kosi River in the Himalayas captured part of a tributary: the Arun River. This process, known as river piracy, set in motion a chain of geological events that reshaped the landscape, scientists reported Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience.With a downstream flow st …
