Latest news with #AtacamaDesert
ABC News
4 days ago
- General
- ABC News
Kim and April Hamilton
We meet cacti lovers Kim and April Hamilton, and visit their specialist nursery about 50km west of Sydney. Kim runs the nursery, helped by her mother April, who has officially retired. The family business was started by April and her husband Kevin in the backyard of their suburban home in 1973. Their collection – and number of greenhouses – kept growing so they kept moving. When Kevin passed away, he and April had been married for 57 years. Kim still has plants that Kevin grew from seed, a few of them in the genus Copiapoa , which are native to the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile. Cacti have spines and succulents have thorns, but both are used to catch precious water in dry environments, and as protection against being eaten. 'If you love them, you don't mind getting spines in your fingers,' says April. 'If you hate them, that's the one thing you hate the most.' Both cacti and succulents like a lot of light but it doesn't have to be full sun; protection from late afternoon sun is needed for some. Some cacti have hair because they grow at altitude, and they can be covered in snow over winter. Other have hair to insulate them from the heat. Lithops or living stones are succulents that grow among other rocks in their natural environment. When it's hot they pull themselves down into the ground. April shows how to remove a seed pod from a Lithops that has flowered; in nature the rain hits the seed pod and washes the seed out. To simulate that effect, April drops the seed pod into some water; you may get up to 100 tiny seeds from each flower. 'Kevin wouldn't sow seeds on a windy day because half of it would end up in Penrith!' April transfers the seed to a paper plate to dry. When the seeds are dry enough to separate out, she sprinkles them onto a punnet filled with free-draining mix of coarse sand and waters them lightly. 'Within a week to a month we'll have some little babies popping up.' Kim can still remember her first cactus that she got at 7 years old – an Astrophytum myriostigma that she still has. 'It's had a hard life – it's 50 years old,' she says. 'I wouldn't put it in a show – except maybe as ugliest survivor! but it still flowers for me.' Kim is a qualified judge for the Royal Horticultural Society of NSW and does a lot of work with the cactus society. While she loves the plants, Kim says it's the lifelong friends she's made in the cacti world that mean the most to her. One such friend is Ian Hay, who used to drive up from Canberra for the NSW cactus shows 'and scoop all the prizes'! Now he lives in Woolloomooloo but has no room for his plants there, so he stores them at the Hamiltons' nursery. 'I've always collected the most colourful plants that I can get,' he says, 'and I collect every genus I can get my hands on.' Copiapoa cv. LIVING STONES Lithops sp. BISHOP'S CAP CACTUS Astrophytum myriostigma Filmed on Dharawal Country | Illawarra Region, NSW Useful Links Cacti and Succulents
Forbes
06-08-2025
- Science
- Forbes
Planet Formation Theory Is Still Ensnared By A Chicken Or Egg Problem
In the rush to understand the formation history of solar systems like ours, one big conundrum still ensnares this field of research. That is, how protostellar disks form their very first planets. We don't yet know how that first planet gets formed, Nienke van der Marel an astronomer at Leiden University in The Netherlands, tells me in her office. We understand how clumping can be caused by physical forces within the disk once there's a planet in that disk, van der Marel tells me, but the biggest question is still how that first planet formed. Ongoing observations by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile's Northern Atacama Desert are largely responsible for the lion's share of our current knowledge about how protoplanetary disks form from millimeter-sized particles and grow into full-fledged planetary systems like ours. In 2013, using some of the first ALMA observations van der Marel and colleagues detected the existence of a dust trap in a protoplanetary disk around the young A-type star Oph-IRS 48, located some 400 light-years away in the Northern constellation of Ophiuchus. A dust trap is a location where millimeter-sized pebbles, are concentrated in one part of the disk, and where they can continue to grow all the way from planetesimals (planetary building blocks ranging from a few km to a few hundred km in diameter) to full-fledged planets. That first planet will carve a gap along its orbit and then at the outer edge of that gap, you naturally get a maximum in the density and a bump in the gas density, says van der Marel. So now, the pebbles that come from the outer disk still drift inwards, but then at that maximum pressure location, they get trapped, she says. But as soon as these particles reach typical pebble sizes (1 mm across), they will start to experience drag forces from the gas in the disk and rapidly move inwards toward the star, says van der Marel. Disappearing Pebbles So, within a hundred years, any pebble that you form out here in the outer region of the disk has moved all the way inwards and onto the star and is lost; it doesn't have time to continue growing all the way to planetesimals, says van der Marel. So, you need something that stops the pebbles from drifting inwards, she says. And the phenomenon that was proposed to stop it was a dust trap, says van der Marel. Planetary Disk Pressure Bumps 'Pressure bumps' or 'dust traps' present in the disk will halt these inward moving pebbles and trap them, says van der Marel. This whole idea creates a major chicken or egg problem, because if you need a planet to create dust traps, then dust traps are necessary to form planetesimals and planets, she says. Alternative Scenarios If indeed planets are the only source of dust traps, then we do have a chicken or egg problem to form the first planet, Olja Panic, an astrophysicist at the University of Leeds in the U.K., tells me in Reykjavik. But recent research has been directed towards identifying possible scenarios under which these dust traps can arise without the need for planets to cause them, says Panic. This could include various types of gravitational disk instabilities, whether generated from a passing star or during the disk's earliest formation. It is also possible that there are other mechanisms that create the first dust traps, such as magnetic fields, ionization structures (which would arrange molecules so that they have a net electrical charge), or even planetary snowlines. That is, regions in a young planetary disk where temperatures are so cold that water, ammonia, carbon monoxide or even methane can freeze into ice grains. Some researchers posit that this increase in ice density might even trigger the formation of gas giant planets like Jupiter. The idea is that these first dust traps would then concentrate these planetary pebbles until the first planet forms within the dust trap. But that has yet to be confirmed observationally. When Might This Problem Be Solved? Although ALMA's array of 66 telescopes work have allowed astronomers to see incredible detail in these disks of gas and dust around young stars, future telescopes will reveal even more detail about how these stars spawn planets. In the coming decades, a lot of new telescopes will teach us more about the composition of exoplanets which may also tell us how they form, says van der Marel. Just like ALMA, the Next Generation Very Large Array (NGVLA) in New Mexico is another up and coming radio array which will observe at even longer wavelengths where we can trace even larger dust grains, she says. That may help us to understand where most planet formation takes place, says van der Marel. Is our solar system an anomaly? We don't have the data right now to say for certain whether we are an anomaly or not, says van der Marel.
BBC News
04-07-2025
- Science
- BBC News
The observatory that can reveal deepest secrets of space
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has started operation in Chile's Atacama Desert. It's home to the largest digital camera ever made, with the goal of mapping the entire night sky in more detail than ever before. Presenter Ione Wells was granted early access to the telescope to see how this world-changing telescope works up close. This video is from Tech Now, the BBC's flagship technology programme.
Malay Mail
30-06-2025
- Science
- Malay Mail
Lettuce from thin air: Chile's fog catchers grow crops in the world's driest desert where rain never falls
CHANARAL (Chile), July 1 — In Chile's arid Atacama, the driest desert in the world, growers and researchers are looking to harness water from the very air itself to grow lettuces and lemons, using a net to catch drops of moisture from fog. 'We are growing hydroponic lettuce entirely with fog water in the driest desert on the planet,' Orlando Rojas, president of the Atacama Fog Catchers Association, told Reuters near Chanaral in the Atacama, where some areas do not see rainfall for years. 'We have had other crops that have not yielded results, which is why we have tended towards doing lettuce.' A drone view shows fog catchers, meshes suspended between two poles that intercept small bits of moisture to collect water from the air in the Atacama Desert, in Paposo, Chile June 13, 2025. — Reuters pic Researchers at the UC Atacama Desert Centre are launching an open-access web mapping platform to show the location of the areas with potential for fog-water harvesting in the country, trying to open up these arid areas for cultivation. 'We know its potential and we know it can be an option and a solution for different scales of water needs in different territories where there is significant water scarcity,' said Camilo Del Rio, director of the UC Atacama Desert Centre. A set of fog catchers, meshes suspended between two poles that intercept small bits of moisture to collect water from the air in the Atacama Desert, stand in Paposo, Chile June 13, 2025. — Reuters pic Amid barren rocky hills and dry, white sand, the system works by using a mesh suspended between two poles that intercepts the small amount of moisture in the air, turning it into droplets that are collected and stored in water tanks. 'We are able to collect 1,000 to 1,400 litres of water in these inhospitable places, where we are clearly not favoured by nature in other ways,' said Rojas in a region where lemon trees were also growing from the collected water. Orlando Rojas, president of the Atacama fog catcher group, removes a net from a greenhouse to uncover a lemon tree grown with water captured by fog catchers, meshes suspended between two poles that intercept tiny bits of moisture, to collect water from the air in the Atacama Desert, in Chanaral, Chile June 10, 2025. — Reuters pic 'We have the potential for life, which is this water resource. Once we learned about this project, we haven't stopped because it is vital for human subsistence.' Mario Segovia, also from the fog-catching group, said that the water collected from moisture in the air was pure. 'The harvest doesn't look bad, it's a super healthy food, pure nutrients that are organic,' he said. 'They're in a state of water with nutrients, because this fog-catcher water is completely neutral, it has no minerals, no chlorine, nothing.' — Reuters
Forbes
29-06-2025
- Forbes
In The World's Driest Desert, Chile's Tierra Atacama Debuts Next-Level Luxury
Sunset over the desert at Tierra Atacama Diego Marin Studded with snow-capped volcanoes and vibrant, technicolor lagoons tinted by the mineral richness of untouched soils, the landscapes of Chile's Atacama Desert feel more Martian than earthly. It's amidst this desolate yet dreamy environment—the driest non-polar desert on the planet—that the renowned Tierra Atacama unveils an ambitious renovation, and a luxurious experience intrepid travelers might not expect from such a spot. Tierra Atacama first debuted in this remote region of northern Chile in 2008, repurposing age-old adobe mud walls within a modern design spearheaded by Chilean architects Rodrigo Searle and Matías González. From the start, the award-winning hotel has felt transformative in a destination that feels totally raw and removed. Located on the edge of the tiny town of San Pedro de Atacama, it sits on the outskirts of one of the few outposts in the expanses of the Atacama Desert, once referred to by Charles Darwin as 'a barrier far worse than the most turbulent ocean,' for its unforgiving and impassible expanses. After a twelve-month closure, the luxury property now welcomes guests back to a new experience unique to a destination brimming with unexpected appeal. Rather than go bigger, Tierra Atacama went more intentional and more intimate, reducing the number of suites from 32 to 28 to create a more exclusive and expansive feel. Four of the transformed suites at the property now feature private plunge pools and offer a dedicated vehicle and guide ready to whisk visitors away on bespoke expeditions and customized activities across the remote region. In addition to updated suites, the property also added thoughtful features like enhanced common spaces like a sunken lounge space featuring front-row views of the untouched areas around the property. A renovated spa now offers an oversized treatment room for couples and an enhanced menu of wellness experiences, a pillar of the Tierra Atacama experience. Freshly redesigned rooms at Tierra Atacama pay homage to local landscapes, textures, and design Tierra Atacama Dining has always been a focus at Tierra Atacama, and with the addition of new culinary spaces and experiences for guests, it's even more memorable. Menus highlight dishes deeply influenced by regional cooking traditions and techniques, served in dining rooms that look out onto sweeping plains and soaring volcanoes. A new wine cellar houses an impressive collection of Chilean wines, themselves an increasingly popular draw to the country from visitors from all parts of the world. It's just one way that with the property's renovation, deep local roots and connection have come first, even in the smallest of ways. "We have been very deliberate in choosing to use local materials, furnishings and arts and crafts," said Miguel Purcell, the founder of Tierra Hotels and a leader in the property's redesign. "Construction services from the region as part of the works [also] benefit and involve the community at every stage of the process." The property's new color palette pulls from the neutral, earthy tones of the landscape and the deep blues of the daytime and evening sky so emblematic of the remote destination. Natural materials sourced locally were prioritized throughout. As part of the project, more than 40 local artisans and designers contributed decor, artwork and design aspects to the property's interior. Rather than an escape from the Atacama Desert, Tierra Atacama becomes an extension of it —an homage to it. Tierra Atacama sits amidst the dramatic landscapes of Chile's Atacama Desert Tierra Atacama The Atacama Desert It is the destination, after all, that has long drawn intrepid travelers to reach this remote destination. Despite the area being so remote, it's arguably one of the most stunning in the world, home to sites like Laguna Colorada with bright red waters where brilliant pink flamingos feed and a stretch of desert that looks so surreal it is named after Salvador Dalí. Just across the border with Bolivia sit the Salar de Uyuni Salt Flats, famous for flooding over during the rainy season and creating a perfect mirror of the bright blue sky above. The Atacama Desert is known for its inky black skies, considered one of the best on Earth for stargazing. The combination of the desert's high altitude, remote location and crystal-clear, cloudless skies is so enviable that it's home to some of the world's most important telescopes, with even more coming soon. Tierra Atacama guests don't have to go far to get close to some of the area's most impressive landscapes; after all, the stunning Licancabur Volcano overlooks the property. However, the property's thoughtfully planned and locally led excursions range from bike tours to jeep excursions and are each designed to highlight the best of this beautiful, bare region. The debut of Tierra Atacama's remarkable renovation is, therefore, more than just an aesthetic change; it is a significant experiential one. Tierra Atacama overlooking Licancabur Volcano on the border between Chile and Bolivia Tierra Atacama Luxury Redefined "It has been a privilege to have been entrusted with the stewardship of Tierra Atacama's legacy, while taking the property to a leading position of luxury experiential lodging in Chile," says Purcell. Together with its Chilean sister property, Tierra Patagonia, and the rest Baillie Lodges' growing portfolio of lodges in remote regions around the world, Tierra Atacama feels set to redefine luxury. Here, luxury as more than just a laundry list of amenities, but a one-of-a-kind connection to one of the world's most beautiful places
