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The driest place on Earth
- huytersd 3y agoDid earth have no deserts before 10-15 million years ago?
- tomsmeding 3y agoPresumably "the oldest desert on Earth" means the oldest one that still exists. Otherwise it wouldn't be on Earth, after all; it would have been gone already.
- andsoitis 3y agoAccording the University of California Museum of Paleontology, desert have existed since at least the Permian period (299-251 million years ago) when the world's continents had combined into Pangaea. https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/permian/permian.php https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/permian/permian.php
- moondev 3y agoMecca for 3D Printing
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- davidw 3y agoI have to admit, the climate here looks pretty amazing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arica#Climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arica#Climate - it's pleasant all the time and it never rains.
- zoklet-enjoyer 3y agoAgreed. In surprised the humidity is as high as it is
- dghughes 3y agoWell, they have a port.
- mikpanko 3y agoLooks like Arica is over 500km north of Atacama desert described in the article.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoThat's not really accurate. Arica may be 500 km north of the center of the Atacama desert where this article is about, but Arica is essentially right on the border of the Atacama - take a look at the map on the Wikipedia page, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atacama_Desert https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atacama_Desert
- falvear 3y agoArica has indeed an amazing climate all year round. It sits right at the end of Azapa Valley, an oasis formed by the San José river.
- Anon4Now 3y agoWhich lead me down this rabbit hole: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2021/06/chile-nearly-40-years-still-no-remedy-victims-swedish-toxic-waste-un-experts https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2021/06/chile-nearly... > GENEVA (7 June 2021) - UN human rights experts* said today they were deeply concerned by the continuous devastating impact on a local community of a dumping of toxic waste by a Swedish company in the northern Chilean city of Arica nearly 40 years ago. > The toxic waste - which remains outdoors, uncovered and exposed to nature’s elements - poses a health and security risk given its high content of arsenic, including to drinking water systems. > “The residents of Arica continue to suffer serious health problems caused by the waste dump,” the experts said. “The community has been denied access to justice for years, received little or no remediation, and even today those in need of medical care are ignored. I feel so sorry for those people. That's just unconscionable.
- p1esk 3y ago”All our Earth analogies are much weaker than the conditions that are present on Mars,” says Friedmann. “Mars is much drier, much colder, with much more intense UV radiation.” Why do people want to go to Mars? Seems like no matter how bad it could ever get here on Earth, climate wise, it would still be much better than Mars.
- chiefalchemist 3y agoMars is a stepping stone to going further. If you aspire to leave the solar system, Mars is the proof of concept, the MVP.
- p1esk 3y agoWhy is Mars a good stepping stone to leave the solar system? The moon seems like a much better choice: much closer to Earth and much lower gravity to launch from.
- chiefalchemist 3y agoWe've been to the moon. That's doable. Mars is the next notch up. Moon == 13.1. Mars == 26.2.
- audunw 3y agoClimate isn't going to be very nice if an astroid hits.. If we see it coming I think a very small population of humans could survive. But it's still nice to have a "backup" planet in case of such civilization ending catastrophes. And then there's .. you know .. because it's something to aspire to, and there's probably a bunch of interesting science we could do there. Especially with regards to life on other planets
- GCA10 3y agoEven after an asteroid impact (or major nuclear war), planet Earth would still be a much more welcoming place for human life. Air quality on Earth would go down a bit, but there would still be air. Food supplies would be chaotic, but some crops somewhere should survive. As for severe temperature swings on a post-apocalyptic Earth, they'd probably still be easier to handle than what NASA calculates on Mars as nightly lows of -128 C. I realize that colonizing far away places is what Earthlings do. (Columbus, Cecil Rhodes, etc.) But the lets-go-to-Mars crowd strikes me as an extreme manifestation of Dunning-Kruger
- pcrh 3y agoThat's and interesting proposition. Particularly the consumption, or not, of nitrate. I wonder what other measure(s) might be used to indicate the abundance of life?
- Brajeshwar 3y agoSo, I need to visit this place once, take some pictures, take a selfie, and run back quickly. That way, I can check off that I have visited the wettest and the driest place on earth. My first trip outside my home state was to the neighboring state of Meghalaya (India), where I visited the two wettest places on earth — Mawsynram[1] and Cherrapunji[2]. At that time, in the 90s, Cherrapunji was more popular. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mawsynram https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mawsynram 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherrapunji https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherrapunji
- fnordpiglet 3y agoIt does feel like the wettest place on earth is any body of standing water….