Even in the Atacama Trench, a deep-sea canyon off the coast of Chile and Peru that plunges more than 7,000 meters beneath the surface, scientists have also uncovered life. Meet Dulcibella camanchaca.

The Atacama desert, which fringes the city on its southern edge, spans some 600 miles along the Pacific Coast of South America, and is one of the most extreme landscapes on the planet.

The Atacama’s dark skies and other qualities lured organizations to build cutting-edge instruments such as the VLT, the ELT and the southern array of the CTAO. “The darker the sky, the fainter ...