Bangkok--16 Nov--Image Impact
Program Title: How The Earth Was Made: Driest Place On Earth
Channel: HISTORY on TrueVisions A23 and D48Telecast Date & Time: Monday, November 16, 2009 at 7.00 p.m.
The Atacama desert is considered the driest place on Earth. Since human records of the area began, some places have never received rain. But the records don't stop there, the Atacama is also the oldest desert in the world, recently it has been dated to an amazing 150 million years old. Other research shows that it's surface is also incredibly ancient--there are boulders lying in this desert that have not moved for over 23 million years--that's over 50 times longer than it's taken for our human species to evolve. The soil is so dry that it has been used as a test bed for the Mars rovers. Once thought completely lifeless, strange bacteria discovered in the desert have given scientists new hope that they might find life on the red planet. Atacama is also home to the largest copper mine in the world. Inspect the riddle of the Atacama and uncover how this extraordinarily dry landscape was created.