As the sun sets on the southern edge of Chile’s Atacama Desert, the wind picks up, the temperature plummets, and the surrounding hills and mountains begin fading from view. Within minutes it’s pitch-black, with not so much as a car headlamp in sight across the vast, rocky landscape. At an altitude of more than 8,500 feet, these peaks sandwiched between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean—about a day’s drive from the capital, Santiago—rank among the driest, least hospitable places on Earth. (Props to the odd fox or herd of alpacas living among the scrub.) Yet for Chuck Claver, this is paradise. From the top of a mountain, he can see the celestial bodies dotting the night sky in unmatched brightness. The shine of faraway planets, stars and galaxies is hardly dimmed by light pollution or humidity.
Claver is a system scientist at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, eight stories’ worth of cutting-edge, US government-funded research perched on one of these Atacama peaks. Named for the pioneering American astronomer, the Rubin is part of a global hub of at least 10 advanced telescopes in a region renowned for its dry, clear and calm night skies. In exchange for permission to operate in the country and some tax advantages, foreign-backed observatories reserve a portion of their telescope capacity for use by Chilean astronomers.