Latest news with #AtacamaDesert
BBC News
04-07-2025
- Science
- BBC News
The observatory that can reveal deepest secrets of space
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has started operation in Chile's Atacama Desert. It's home to the largest digital camera ever made, with the goal of mapping the entire night sky in more detail than ever before. Presenter Ione Wells was granted early access to the telescope to see how this world-changing telescope works up close. This video is from Tech Now, the BBC's flagship technology programme.
Malay Mail
30-06-2025
- Science
- Malay Mail
Lettuce from thin air: Chile's fog catchers grow crops in the world's driest desert where rain never falls
CHANARAL (Chile), July 1 — In Chile's arid Atacama, the driest desert in the world, growers and researchers are looking to harness water from the very air itself to grow lettuces and lemons, using a net to catch drops of moisture from fog. 'We are growing hydroponic lettuce entirely with fog water in the driest desert on the planet,' Orlando Rojas, president of the Atacama Fog Catchers Association, told Reuters near Chanaral in the Atacama, where some areas do not see rainfall for years. 'We have had other crops that have not yielded results, which is why we have tended towards doing lettuce.' A drone view shows fog catchers, meshes suspended between two poles that intercept small bits of moisture to collect water from the air in the Atacama Desert, in Paposo, Chile June 13, 2025. — Reuters pic Researchers at the UC Atacama Desert Centre are launching an open-access web mapping platform to show the location of the areas with potential for fog-water harvesting in the country, trying to open up these arid areas for cultivation. 'We know its potential and we know it can be an option and a solution for different scales of water needs in different territories where there is significant water scarcity,' said Camilo Del Rio, director of the UC Atacama Desert Centre. A set of fog catchers, meshes suspended between two poles that intercept small bits of moisture to collect water from the air in the Atacama Desert, stand in Paposo, Chile June 13, 2025. — Reuters pic Amid barren rocky hills and dry, white sand, the system works by using a mesh suspended between two poles that intercepts the small amount of moisture in the air, turning it into droplets that are collected and stored in water tanks. 'We are able to collect 1,000 to 1,400 litres of water in these inhospitable places, where we are clearly not favoured by nature in other ways,' said Rojas in a region where lemon trees were also growing from the collected water. Orlando Rojas, president of the Atacama fog catcher group, removes a net from a greenhouse to uncover a lemon tree grown with water captured by fog catchers, meshes suspended between two poles that intercept tiny bits of moisture, to collect water from the air in the Atacama Desert, in Chanaral, Chile June 10, 2025. — Reuters pic 'We have the potential for life, which is this water resource. Once we learned about this project, we haven't stopped because it is vital for human subsistence.' Mario Segovia, also from the fog-catching group, said that the water collected from moisture in the air was pure. 'The harvest doesn't look bad, it's a super healthy food, pure nutrients that are organic,' he said. 'They're in a state of water with nutrients, because this fog-catcher water is completely neutral, it has no minerals, no chlorine, nothing.' — Reuters
Forbes
29-06-2025
- Forbes
In The World's Driest Desert, Chile's Tierra Atacama Debuts Next-Level Luxury
Sunset over the desert at Tierra Atacama Diego Marin Studded with snow-capped volcanoes and vibrant, technicolor lagoons tinted by the mineral richness of untouched soils, the landscapes of Chile's Atacama Desert feel more Martian than earthly. It's amidst this desolate yet dreamy environment—the driest non-polar desert on the planet—that the renowned Tierra Atacama unveils an ambitious renovation, and a luxurious experience intrepid travelers might not expect from such a spot. Tierra Atacama first debuted in this remote region of northern Chile in 2008, repurposing age-old adobe mud walls within a modern design spearheaded by Chilean architects Rodrigo Searle and Matías González. From the start, the award-winning hotel has felt transformative in a destination that feels totally raw and removed. Located on the edge of the tiny town of San Pedro de Atacama, it sits on the outskirts of one of the few outposts in the expanses of the Atacama Desert, once referred to by Charles Darwin as 'a barrier far worse than the most turbulent ocean,' for its unforgiving and impassible expanses. After a twelve-month closure, the luxury property now welcomes guests back to a new experience unique to a destination brimming with unexpected appeal. Rather than go bigger, Tierra Atacama went more intentional and more intimate, reducing the number of suites from 32 to 28 to create a more exclusive and expansive feel. Four of the transformed suites at the property now feature private plunge pools and offer a dedicated vehicle and guide ready to whisk visitors away on bespoke expeditions and customized activities across the remote region. In addition to updated suites, the property also added thoughtful features like enhanced common spaces like a sunken lounge space featuring front-row views of the untouched areas around the property. A renovated spa now offers an oversized treatment room for couples and an enhanced menu of wellness experiences, a pillar of the Tierra Atacama experience. Freshly redesigned rooms at Tierra Atacama pay homage to local landscapes, textures, and design Tierra Atacama Dining has always been a focus at Tierra Atacama, and with the addition of new culinary spaces and experiences for guests, it's even more memorable. Menus highlight dishes deeply influenced by regional cooking traditions and techniques, served in dining rooms that look out onto sweeping plains and soaring volcanoes. A new wine cellar houses an impressive collection of Chilean wines, themselves an increasingly popular draw to the country from visitors from all parts of the world. It's just one way that with the property's renovation, deep local roots and connection have come first, even in the smallest of ways. "We have been very deliberate in choosing to use local materials, furnishings and arts and crafts," said Miguel Purcell, the founder of Tierra Hotels and a leader in the property's redesign. "Construction services from the region as part of the works [also] benefit and involve the community at every stage of the process." The property's new color palette pulls from the neutral, earthy tones of the landscape and the deep blues of the daytime and evening sky so emblematic of the remote destination. Natural materials sourced locally were prioritized throughout. As part of the project, more than 40 local artisans and designers contributed decor, artwork and design aspects to the property's interior. Rather than an escape from the Atacama Desert, Tierra Atacama becomes an extension of it —an homage to it. Tierra Atacama sits amidst the dramatic landscapes of Chile's Atacama Desert Tierra Atacama The Atacama Desert It is the destination, after all, that has long drawn intrepid travelers to reach this remote destination. Despite the area being so remote, it's arguably one of the most stunning in the world, home to sites like Laguna Colorada with bright red waters where brilliant pink flamingos feed and a stretch of desert that looks so surreal it is named after Salvador Dalí. Just across the border with Bolivia sit the Salar de Uyuni Salt Flats, famous for flooding over during the rainy season and creating a perfect mirror of the bright blue sky above. The Atacama Desert is known for its inky black skies, considered one of the best on Earth for stargazing. The combination of the desert's high altitude, remote location and crystal-clear, cloudless skies is so enviable that it's home to some of the world's most important telescopes, with even more coming soon. Tierra Atacama guests don't have to go far to get close to some of the area's most impressive landscapes; after all, the stunning Licancabur Volcano overlooks the property. However, the property's thoughtfully planned and locally led excursions range from bike tours to jeep excursions and are each designed to highlight the best of this beautiful, bare region. The debut of Tierra Atacama's remarkable renovation is, therefore, more than just an aesthetic change; it is a significant experiential one. Tierra Atacama overlooking Licancabur Volcano on the border between Chile and Bolivia Tierra Atacama Luxury Redefined "It has been a privilege to have been entrusted with the stewardship of Tierra Atacama's legacy, while taking the property to a leading position of luxury experiential lodging in Chile," says Purcell. Together with its Chilean sister property, Tierra Patagonia, and the rest Baillie Lodges' growing portfolio of lodges in remote regions around the world, Tierra Atacama feels set to redefine luxury. Here, luxury as more than just a laundry list of amenities, but a one-of-a-kind connection to one of the world's most beautiful places
Malay Mail
27-06-2025
- Science
- Malay Mail
Snow blankets Atacama Desert, the world's driest, in rare weather event
SANTIAGO, June 27 — 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. — AFP
The Guardian
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Edward Burtynsky: ‘My photographs are like Rorschach tests'
Few if any photographers have done more than Edward Burtynsky to shape our view of the large-scale industrial production that is a constant, ever-expanding part of the capitalist system. Since the 1980s, he has created more than a dozen multiyear series, tackling extractive industries like mining and oil refining in India, China and Azerbaijan, traveling to such disparate places as Western Australia, Chile's Atacama desert and the so-called ship graveyards of Bangladesh. Often taken from high in the sky, his photos offer views of industrial landscapes that attend to color and pattern with a sophisticated eye reminiscent of abstract expressionism, while also forcing us to contend with the devastating transformations to the natural world required to sustain our way of life. Burtynsky's new show at the International Center of Photography in New York, titled The Great Acceleration, brings together some 70 photographs from a lifetime behind the lens. It seeks to offer a fitting survey of a masterful photographic career, and it debuts the largest photographic mural that Burtynsky has ever done. His relationship with the medium began when he was about 12, when he got his first camera. As a young child, he spent hour upon hour painting alongside his father, who had hoped to become an artist but ended up working in factories. After he learned to painstakingly sketch landscapes and paint with oils, the ease of photographs was a revelation. 'I just realized how in one fraction of a second I can create a landscape – just, boom, it's there,' Burtynsky told me. 'I loved how it was a modern, fast way to get your image, and I loved the darkroom, watching the image emerge.' Similarly, Burtynsky's relationship with the industrial world that has become his subject goes back to his formative years – originally trained as a tool and die maker, he came of age working within factories, seeing first-hand just how dirty, loud and dangerous they really were. 'When I saw the scale of industry, as a young 18-year-old working in these places,' Burtynsky said, 'I could tell that if we were going to become this population of all this growth that they were projecting, then all of this was just going to amplify, this all was just going to get bigger and more insane.' Turning away from such a life, Burtynsky began to study the graphic arts, and after a well-timed push from one of his instructors, he made the decision to receive formal instruction in photography. After spending so much time around heavy industry, he said, it was a revelation: 'All of a sudden, I'm exposed to the whole history of art, and the whole history of music, and the whole history of photography.' It was in school that Burtynsky got exposure to major influences like Eadweard Muybridge, Carleton Watkins, Caspar David Friedrich and painters of the New York school, particularly Jackson Pollock. It was there that he also began to develop his distinctive way of seeing the world. 'I really liked the kind of field painting, the compression of space, the gesture, the color fields, in abstract expressionism,' he said. 'So I started doing landscapes, but I said: 'I'm not just going to go out into the forest and do cliches like anybody else. I'm going to go and try to do Jackson Pollocks with a large-format camera. I'm going to try to attune my eye so I can find really complex spaces in nature that are almost like gesture paintings.'' In no small part because of that painterly eye, Burtynsky imbues his work with an undeniable beauty, a fact that has sometimes made critics uneasy. Shots like that of a enormous stepwell in Rajasthan, or the Chino mine in Silver City, New Mexico, are mesmerizing in their intricacy, their arrangement of color and the hypnotic way that Burtynsky has framed the innumerable lines within. If his photographs of environmental destruction are gorgeous, Burtynsky defends them on the ground that this pleasingness evokes the curiosity and engagement that leads to potentially fruitful dialogue. 'There are all sorts of issues that start to rise up. Like: are you aestheticizing the destruction of the planet?' he said. 'Well, that's not how I'm looking at it. But maybe. I'm really trying to find a visual language that has a painterly or surreal quality to it that shows the world we've evolved in a way that makes people engage with it, versus saying: 'That's just a banal picture of something that I'm not interested in.'' Burtynsky is clear about the fact that his images are meant to be not didactic but enigmatic, entry points and not endpoints. Although it is difficult to look at shots such as a wasteland full of discarded tires or a mountainside honeycombed by extractive mining without feeling a gut reaction of shame and eco-anxiety, his photographs are much more than just environmentalist agitprop. The artist takes pride in the many interpretations that his works can hold. 'My photographs are like Rorschach tests,' he said. 'It's like the teacher puts a picture in front of the class and it's like: what did you see? If they see environmental degradation, they see something out of the history of art. If they see something, like, technologically kind of advanced, or some curious way in which we do things as humans, each one of them is a legitimate reading of what they're seeing – the individual completes it. When people tell me about what they see in an image, I get to learn more about them than they probably learn about me.' In addition to delivering some of Burtynsky's most career-defining works, The Great Acceleration also shows lesser-known sides of the photographer – there are two pieces from his student days, a shot from a rarely seen series that he made exploring masculinity via taxidermy workshops, and never-before-shown portraits of individual workers who toil within the built landscapes that he specializes in. 'I would walk through these landscapes with my 2 1/4 camera, and every once in a while I'd see a person and say: 'Can I take your photograph?' It was always an acknowledgement of the sitter in their space, and just another way of showing that these are things that humans are doing,' he said. Burtynsky hopes that shows like The Great Acceleration offer a way to let a wider audience see what is happening in the world. He remains doubtful of art's ability to directly transform how governments and industry use our resources, but he does believe in the value of raising awareness and sparking curiosity. 'Artists are soft power, we're storytellers, we don't have the ability to influence or shape policy. What we can do is raise consciousness, absorb our experience of the world and move it through the medium of our choice. I'm trying to be a kind of conduit into what is happening.' Edward Burtynsky: The Great Acceleration is on show at the International Center of Photography in New York until 28 September
