In a post on social network X, the official account of the ALMA Observatory posted a video with a caption about the rare sight in the Atacama Desert: "Unbelievable! The Atacama Desert, the driest place on earth , is snowing." Photo: ESO / Imagen ALMA.

The Atacama is known as the driest desert on Earth. It is the only place in the world with lower humidity than all the polar deserts. Covering an area of 106,190 km2, the Atacama is mostly sand, salt lakes, and rugged terrain. Photo: M. Aguirre, S. Donaire, ALMA (ESO/NOAJ/NRAO)).

The lack of rainfall is due to the Chilean coastal mountains and the Andes blocking moisture from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans from entering the desert. Image: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/W. Garnier (ALMA)).

The Atacama is home to the darkest skies in the world, making it the ideal location for some of the planet's most advanced telescopes for decades. Photo: European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery.

The ALMA telescope, developed by the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), is recognized as the world's most powerful telescope. Photo: ALMA / Matías Aguirre.

The ALMA Observatory headquarters is located at 2,900m above sea level in the Atacama Desert, Chile, about 28km from the location of the giant antennas and telescopes on the Chajnantor plateau, an area located at an altitude of 5,000m above sea level. Photo: ESO.

According to ALMA, snow falls regularly on the Chajnantor plateau, but the headquarters has not seen snow for 10 years. Photo: ecochile.travel.

Climatologist Raul Cordero at the University of Santiago said there was no concrete evidence that the snowfall was linked to climate change. However, he added that climate models show that "events like the rain in the Atacama Desert are likely to become more frequent." Photo: ecochile.travel.

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