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- SCIENCE, Page 73Peary on TopHe 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.