Rare dusting of snow covers one of the driest places on Earth and shuts down massive radio telescope — Earth from space
QUICK FACTS
Where is he? Atacama Desert, Chile
What’s in the photo? A rare blanket of snow covers parts of one of the driest places on Earth.
Which satellite took the photo? Landsat9
When was it taken? July 10, 2025
This striking satellite photo captured a rare sight earlier this year, when “one of the driest places on Earth” experienced a rare snowstorm. This freak event temporarily turned the barren, rocky landscape white – and briefly stop one of the most powerful radio telescopes in the world.
The desert is also widely considered one of the driest places on Earth, alongside other hyper-arid spotslike Antarctica and the Sahara. Some regions currently receive only 0.002 inches (0.5 millimeters) of rain per year, according to Guinness World Records. Previous research has suggested that parts of the Atacama almost 400 years without any recorded rainbetween 1570 and 1971.
On June 25, a rare snowstorm hit Atacama after a “cold core cyclone” drifted unexpectedly from the north, covering more than half of the desert in white powder, according to NASA Earth Observatory.
The satellite photo above shows part of the Chajnantor Plateau desert, which rises about 16,000 feet (5,000 meters) above sea level. This area is home to the Atacama Large millimeter/submillimeter array (ALMA) – a collection of more than 50 satellite dishes that roam the “dark universe.” (ALMA itself is not visible in the aerial photo.)
This area is well suited for astronomical research because it is isolated, dry and well-elevated, which reduces interference and maximizes the amount of data that telescopes like ALMA can collect. But when snow settled on the observatory, it temporarily forced ALMA into “survival mode,” meaning the dishes were repositioned to prevent them from accumulating snow, interrupting observations.
The icy dust may also have affected the SOAR (Southern Astrophysical Research) telescope, located about 850 km southwest of ALMA, but to a lesser extent, according to Live Science’s partner site. Espace.com. The newly built Vera C. Rubin Observatory is also located in Atacama, near the SOAR telescope, but was not affected by the storm.
The snow did not last long and most of it was gone by July 16. In some places, the sunlight was so intense that the snow likely sublimated, or went straight from solid to gas, before melting, according to the Earth Observatory.
This is not the first time it has snowed in the Atacama. Similar events have also occurred in 20112013 and 2021.
The region has also experienced several intense rain events in recent years. When this happens, it can trigger deadly mudslides. In March 2015, at least 31 people were killed after heavy rains triggered the Atacama’s largest ever flood, according to a report. 2016 study.
Rain can also cause desert flowers, which normally appear in spring, to bloom unexpectedly during the winter months, creating fields of vibrant petals around the desert. This the most recent occurred in 2024after a surprise downpour caught the plants off guard.
Precipitation is rare in the Atacama for two reasons. First, it lies in the “rain shadow” of the Andes, which blocks clouds coming from the east. Second, cold ocean currents off the west coast of the Pacific prevent water from evaporating into the air above the desert. This makes the Atacama inhospitable to most life forms except hardy desert flowers and extreme microbes that live well below its dry surface.
However, recent instances of extreme rainfall in the region could be a sign of human-caused pollution. climate change therefore it is more likely that snow and rain will fall there. If this continues, the Atacama may one day no longer be one of the driest places on Earth.
For more incredible satellite photos and astronaut images, check out our Earth seen from space archives.
