Rare Snowfall in Atacama Desert Puts World's Most Powerful Radio Telescope into 'Survival Mode'

ALMA's base camp was covered in a rare layer of snow this week. (Photo credit: M. Aguirre, S. Donaire, ALMA (ESO/NOAJ/NRAO))

An unusual snowfall in the driest place on the planet has suspended operations at one of the world's leading telescope networks, and climate change could mean the observatory will face more extreme weather events like this in future.

Snow covered a section of the Atacama Desert that receives less than an inch of rain per year and is home to the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a massive network of radio telescopes in northern Chile.

The snowfall occurred over ALMA's operations support center, which is located at an altitude of 9,500 feet (2,900 meters) and about 1,050 miles (1,700 kilometers) north of Santiago. Science operations have been suspended since Thursday (June 26).