Photos

One of the highest mountain reliefs on Earth can be found in the tiny country of Bhutan. Sandwiched between eastern India and the Tibetan plateau, Bhutan hosts peaks that range between 5,000 and 7,000 m (16,000-23,000 ft) in height. These mountains are neighbors to Mount Everest, Earth's highest peak at 8,850 m (29,035 ft). The impressive Bhutan Himalayas are permanently capped with snow, which extends down valleys in long glacier tongues. Because of disparate weather patterns on either side of the Himalayas and differences in topography, the glaciers on each side of the mountain are distinctly different from one another and are likely to react very differently to climate change. Image courtesy of NASA.

This northwest-looking 3-D view was created by draping the previous natural color image over digital topography data obtained from an ASTER satellite. Image courtesy of NASA.