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Some weather stations in this place have never recorded a single drop of rain, and its barren landscape resembles Mars so closely that NASA tests rovers there.
The Atacama's extreme dryness comes from sitting between two mountain ranges that block moisture from both the Pacific and the Amazon, while a cold ocean current offshore further suppresses rainfall, together creating conditions so arid some weather stations there have essentially never recorded measurable rain.
The Sahara is vast and hot but still receives more sporadic rainfall than the driest Atacama zones, and Death Valley, though famous for extreme heat, doesn't approach Atacama's near-total absence of precipitation.
NASA uses the Atacama to test Mars rovers precisely because its soil chemistry, dryness, and barren red-toned landscape closely mimic conditions expected on the Martian surface.
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