Quarrels were joined and resolved
With the Andes Mountains forming a barrier to clouds gathering above the Amazon to the east, and the winds from the Pacific to the west picking up little moisture as they pass over the cold Peru Current (formerly called the Humboldt Current), the Atacama Desert is known to be among the driest places on Earth, with less than a half inch of rain a year on average. The desert’s remoteness and inhospitably thin, dry air—ideal for observing the night sky—had already lured several large, multinational telescope projects.
For the most part, these were designed to view the fraction of the cosmos visible at optical wavelengths—the portion of the light spectrum that the human eye can see. Quintana and his companions were scouting a location for a different kind of telescope, one designed to penetrate the curtains of dust and gas that shroud galaxies, swirl around stars, and stretch through the expanses of interstellar space. The project would require some 20 years and more than a billion dollars to design and build.
First, however, they had to find the right spot.
(Source: National Geographic—Cosmic Dawn)