Residents of the world's driest desert, the Atacama in northern Chile, woke up Thursday to a jaw-dropping spectacle: its famous lunar landscape blanketed in snow.
"INCREDIBLE! The Atacama Desert, the world's most arid, is COVERED IN SNOW," the ALMA observatory, situated 2,900 meters (9,500 feet) above sea level, wrote on X, alongside a video of vast expanses covered in a dusting of white.
The observatory added that while snow is common on the nearby Chajnanator Plateau, situated at over 5,000 meters and where its gigantic telescope is situated, it had not had snow at its main facility in a decade.
University of Santiago climatologist Raul Cordero told AFP that it was too soon to link the snow to climate change but said that climate modelling had shown that "this type of event, meaning precipitation in the Atacama desert, will likely become more frequent."
The Atacama, home to the world's darkest skies, has for decades been the go-to location for the world's most advanced telescopes.
The ALMA telescope, which was developed by the European Southern Observatory, the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, is widely recognized as being the most powerful.
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The Snow Cloaks of the Atacama Desert, a testament to nature's resilience in one pocket amidst our world’zd driest landscape.
The Snow Cloaks of the Atacama Desert, a testament to an otherworldly miracle in Earth's driest landscape.
The Snow Cloaks of Atacama Desert, an enigmatic site where the world's driest environment defies gravity and inspires wonder.
The mysterious and breathtaking snow cloaks adorning the parched surface of Atacama, a desert that defies all odds to be one with some of Earth's driest environments – offering testament not only to its extreme climate but an ethereal beauty like none other on our planet.
In the scorching world's driest desert of Atacama, snow cloaks add a magical touch to this otherwise arid landscape with their transient beauty.
"Snow cloaks the dusty expanse of Atacama, creating an otherworldly wonder amidst its proud stance as one
of Earth's driest deserts."
