The sunniest place on the planet is in the Chilean desert.

Scientists have identified a plain in Chile's Atacama Desert that receives as much solar radiation as Venus.

The Altiplano plain in the Atacama Desert. Photo: Pawel Toczynski

The sunniest spot on Earth is Altiplano in the Atacama Desert, a barren plain near the Andes Mountains in Chile that receives as much sunlight as Venus. Despite being generally cold and dry, this sun-drenched region, located at an altitude of 4,000 meters, gets more sun than places closer to the equator or at higher altitudes, according to research published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Live Science reported on July 21.

The Atacama Desert is special for many reasons. It is the oldest desert on Earth, the driest beyond the polar regions, and possibly the clearest place to observe the night sky. The Altiplano in Chile is also notable for its solar radiation, the amount of light energy emitted from the sun to Earth. Scientists measured a world record level of 2,177 watts/m² in this plain. For comparison, radiation in the uppermost layer of the Earth's atmosphere is around 1,360 watts/m².

"That's essentially the amount of radiation you would get in the summer if you were standing on Venus," said research team leader Raul Cordero, a climate researcher at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

This comparison is particularly noteworthy because Venus is 28% closer to the Sun than Earth. The average solar radiation across the plains is 308 watts/m2, another world record that is double that of Central Europe and the East Coast of the United States.

"When solar radiation passes through the atmosphere, it is absorbed by water vapor and scattered by clouds and aerosols," said Seiji Kato, an atmospheric scientist at NASA. "However, locations at higher altitudes above the water vapor layer, with fewer clouds and aerosols, will receive more sunlight."

Another reason Chile is so hot is its geographical location in the Southern Hemisphere. This is especially true in the summer when the Earth's orbit is closer to the Sun, leading to a surge in radiation, up to 7% higher than in the Northern Hemisphere. While satellite data shows it to be the sunniest region in the world, new research helps to reaffirm and explain the reasons behind such high radiation levels.

According to VNE

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