00:02the driest place on earth years without rain
00:11imagine a place on earth where it has not rained in over 400 years
00:16no storms no drizzle not even a single drop a place so dry that nasa uses it to simulate mars
00:27where 7 000 year old mummified bodies are perfectly preserved simply because there is no moisture to
00:34rot them this place is real it exists right now it is called the atacama desert and what happens
00:43here will change how you see our planet forever the place the atacama stretches over 1 600 kilometers
00:50along the pacific coast of south america sandwiched between the andes mountains and the pacific ocean
00:57the largest ocean on earth sits right next door you can literally see it from the desert
01:04and yet no rain falls the landscape is so alien cracked orange soil red lagoons erupting geysers
01:13that salvador dali painted entire collections inspired by it why no rain so why why does an
01:22ocean sit next door and not a single cloud forms free forces combine to make rain impossible
01:30from the east the andes mountains act as a massive wall any moisture from the amazon rises rains out
01:38over the mountains and arrives at the atacama completely dry from the west the cold humbled
01:45ocean current chills the air so severely that clouds simply cannot form and above a permanent high
01:53pressure system acts like an invisible lid pushing air downward blocking any clouds from rising
02:00east blocked west blocked above blocked the atacama is trapped in a permanent unbreakable drought
02:09and has been for millions of years now here is where it gets truly unbelievable the city of kalama inside
02:18the atacama went 400 consecutive years without a single drop of rain until a sudden storm struck in 1972
02:27some weather stations inside the desert have never recorded rainfall
02:32not once ever when nasa ran the same soil tests on the atacama that the viking landers used to search
02:41for life on mars the results came back negative even earth's own ground showed no signs of life
02:49mummified human remains found here are over 7 000 years old preserved not by any human technique but
02:56purely by the dry air and then in 2015 a single freak rainstorm hit the desert within weeks millions of
03:06flowers that had been dormant underground for decades suddenly burst to the surface the driest place on
03:13earth turned completely purple life silently waiting underground for years for just one chance
03:21the mars connection today the atacama is home to more telescopes than anywhere else on earth
03:29the dry air zero cloud cover and high altitude create the clearest window to the universe on our planet
03:37nasa esa and scientists from over 20 countries operate observatories here including the alma telescope array
03:44operating at 5 000 meters altitude but the most haunting use
03:51NASA tests mars rovers here the soil chemistry the dryness the complete absence of microbial life
03:59it is the closest thing to mars that exists on earth in 2023 scientists discovered a region of the
04:07atacama that may resemble the environment of the very first life forms that ever existed on our planet
04:13a desert with almost no life helping us understand where all life began
04:20the atacama desert is not just the driest place on earth it is a place where time stands still
04:28where seven thousand year old humans still wear their faces where flowers wait decades for a single
04:35rainstorm where scientists peer into the deepest corners of the universe a place so extreme it teaches us
04:43about mars about the origin of life about survival itself and it has not reigned there in over 400 years
04:53it has not reigned there in over 400 years if stories like this fascinate you welcome to truth scope
04:58you
