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- SCIENCE, Page 73Peary on Top
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- He did, after all, go to the North Pole
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- In 1909, two years before Roald Amundsen reached the South
- Pole, Admiral Robert E. Peary went in the opposite direction to
- the top of the world -- or so he said. Skeptics have long
- challenged his claim, contending that he never got closer to the
- pole than 89 km (55 miles) away.
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- Last week the National Geographic Society revealed the
- results of a yearlong study of the expedition's records. The
- Navigation Foundation reviewed celestial positions and
- ocean-depth soundings marked in the logs, and even examined the
- shadows in photographs to calculate the angle of the sun and
- help fix the locations in the pictures. The conclusion: Peary
- made it to within 8 km (5 miles) of the pole, close enough to
- confirm his place in history.
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