Where the land ends and the sea begins

The dry, dusty brown of the Atacama desert surrounding Paranal belies the existence of an ocean so close to the home of the VLT. But just 12 km to the west lies the great Pacific Ocean, smoothed over here by low clouds. This is covering very common here, due to the fact that the cold oceanic stream keeps the thermal inversion layer very low, guaranteeing exceptional conditions for ground-based astronomy.