A rare snowstorm blanketed Chile’s Atacama Desert on June 26, 2025, forcing the world’s most powerful radio telescope to halt operations and activate emergency protocols. The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a network of 66 high-precision radio antennas, entered “survival mode” as temperatures plummeted and snow accumulated at its base facility. The snow fell at ALMA’s Operations Support Facility, located at 9,500 feet (2,900 meters) above sea level in northern Chile, about 1,050 miles north of Santiago. This marks the first significant snowfall at this altitude in over a decade, according to ALMA representatives. “There hasn’t been a record of … Continue reading Rare Snowfall Forces World’s Most Powerful Radio Telescope into Survival Mode After 10-Year Weather Gap