Stargazing in the Atacama Desert

Becca Marsh tours Chile's high Atacama Desert - home to some of the darkest skies and most advanced astronomical observatories on the planet - and discovers a stargazing destination like no other

- Becca Marsh

We had been driving for most of the day across the rugged terrain of the Atacama to reach our wild camp spot for the night. Shades of rusty orange coated the landscape. Volcanoes loomed among the jagged peaks that protruded from the horizon. As the Sun started to set and a pink hue flooded the sky, the dazzling stars started to reveal themselves. I couldn't imagine the beauty I was about to witness.

I was fortunate to visit the Atacama earlier this year and was welcomed with some of the best skies I have ever seen. After three weeks of traversing the Moon-like terrain, I found that the best places for stargazing were in the true heart of the Atacama region.

The Atacama Desert isn't merely great for stargazing, it's renowned as one of the finest places in the world for it.

Witnessing some of the darkest skies on Earth from here is a truly unforgettable experience. Several factors combine to make it astronomically ideal: its high altitude, its geographical location and its cold temperatures create the nearperfect conditions for observing the sparkling skies above.

Situated in the Southern Hemisphere in the north of Chile, the Atacama is the driest non-polar desert in the world. It formed between the towering Andes mountain range and the smaller mountains that hug Chile's northern coastline, the Chilean Coastal Range.

These coastal peaks block clouds from the Pacific, while the Andes stop moisture from the Amazon basin - together shaping the desert's extreme aridity over time.