The Area of Exploration
The Atacama Desert (Desierto de Atacama) is a desert plateau located on the Pacific coast of South America, in the north of Chile. Stretching over a 1,600 km (990 mi) strip of land west of the Andes Mountains, it covers an area of 105,000 km2 (41,000 sq mi),[2] which increases to 128,000 km2 (49,000 sq mi) if the barren lower slopes of the Andes are included.
The Atacama Desert is the driest nonpolar desert in the world. It is the only hot true desert to receive less precipitation than polar deserts, and the largest fog desert in the world. The area has been used as an experimentation site for Mars expedition simulations due to its similarities to the Martian environment.
