Penitentes: white "monks" of the Atacama desert

In the Chilean Atacama desert you can find amazing sight: the entire field of snow and ice pillars, stretching to the sun. Some with a height of only a few centimeters, others rise by almost 10 meters.

Sometimes the posts are so close to each other that pass through them can be very difficult or even impossible. They are tapered and together they look like a bunch of priests in white robes with hoods. Because of this similarity they got their name.

Penitentes (penitentes) is a Spanish word translated as "contrite". During Holy week in Spain is the procession in which the priests in robes with pointy hoods to perform religious penance.

Cold dry wind blowing through the arid Atacama desert, which stretches through Northern Chile and southern Peru. According to local belief, this wind creates these white pillars.

However, scientists have a different opinion. In the plain of Chajnantor (Chajnantor plain), which lies at an altitude of 1.2 km above sea level, Penitentes can be observed year-round in open areas where plenty of sunlight. To the end of their process of formation has not been studied, but it is believed that the culprit is the sublimation, i.e. transformation of ice and snow into water vapor. The sun heats the snow, deepening the irregularities on its surface, and then they grow faster due to the fact that the sunlight is reflected from the walls, speeding up the process.

22 March 1835, the famous British biologist Charles Darwin was heading in the Argentine city of Mendoza from Santiago de Chile, and on the way he had to go through the pass of Picinic in the Andes. He described the region as "conical hills of red granite" and "several large fields of endless snow." Darwin was the first Western scientist who made records Penitentes, and his observations aroused great interest in these natural ice sculptures.

On Earth Penitentes found mostly in the Andes and in the Himalayas, but they were also seen on other planets and satellites. Recent discoveries by NASA indicate their presence on Pluto and Europa, satellite of Jupiter. Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke is far ahead of NASA when he wrote in his 1982 novel "2010: Odyssey two":

"All worlds are yours, except Europe: don't even try to make a landing there".

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»