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We all know that deserts are one of the driest places in the world but didyou know that the Atacama desert in Chile is the driest. To understand whatthat really means let’s take as an example the Sahara desert (the worldslargest hot desert) and note that it receives a meager 2mm of rain eachyear.

Now if you think that’s nothing then just imagine how dry the Atacama iswhen it receives just 0.1mm per year. In fact some parts of the desert have notseen rainfall for over 400 years making it in most estimations the driest placeon the planet earth.

Looks Like Mars

Located west of the Andes and sprawling across a stretch of almost 600 milesa small region of the Atacama is so unlike anything else on the planet thatit’s been compared to Mars. In fact due to it’s strange appearance not onlyhave movies been filmed there e.g. Space Odyssey but NASA have continued to useit as their testing grounds for equipment, projects and instruments whenpreparing for Mars space missions.

Do People Live There ?

For an extremely harsh environment you’d be surprised if anything couldsurvive there, however there are small communities located near the variousnatural oases that exist within the desert. In fact some of these settlementshave been populated for thousands of years going back as far as the earliest ofancient civilisations.

Sodium Nitrate

As well as being extremely rich in copper it also carries the largestnatural supply of sodium nitrate. This was mined heavily in the early 20thcentury for use in fertilizers and gun powder. However after the discovery ofthe Haber process (early-mid 20th century) sodium nitrate could now besynthetically produced and most of these mines were closed.

According to estimates the desert is still littered with up to 170 of theseold mining towns which lie completely abandoned like ghost towns.

Astronomy, Astronomy, Astronomy

The Atacama is also one of the best places in the world for astronomy.Thanks to its location (i.e. high altitude), dry weather (i.e. very littlecloud cover) and non existant light pollution it’s home to two of the worldstop observatories. Namely the La Silla and Paranal observatories owned andoperated by the European Southern Observatory.

In addition to these on the 3rd October 2011 it also officially became hometo the most expensive ground telescope in the world, otherwise known as ALMA.The telescope consists of an array of 66 radio telescopes all using radio wavesto peer deep into space helping us learn more about star formations especiallyduring the early years of the universe.

So there you go, that’s the Atacama desert for you. Hope you enjoyed thefacts.

Science Facts

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