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Explanation: You might not guess it, but sunrise was still hours away when this nightscape was taken, a view along the eastern horizon from a remote location in Chile's Atacama desert. Stretching high into the otherwise dark, starry sky the unusually bright conical glow is sunlight though, scattered by dust along the solar system's ecliptic plane . Known as Zodiacal light, the apparition is also nicknamed the "false dawn". Near center, bright star Aldebaran and the Pleiades star cluster seem immersed in the Zodiacal light, with Orion toward the right edge of the frame. Reddish emission from NGC 1499, the...

Magnitude Mw 6.6 Region VALPARAISO, CHILE Date time 2014-08-23 22:32:24.0 UTC Location 32.72 S ; 71.41 W Depth 40 km Distances 108 km NW of Santiago, Chile / pop: 4,837,295 / local time: 18:32:24.0 2014-08-23 41 km NE of Valparaíso, Chile / pop: 282,448 / local time: 18:32:24.0 2014-08-23 19 km W of Hacienda La Calera, Chile / pop: 49,106 / local time: 18:32:24.0 2014-08-23

Navi Pillay said Tel Aviv's two-week onslaught on Gaza - which has cost more than 650 Palestinians lives - would be thoroughly investigated. Ms Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the attacks have destroyed houses and hospitals and killed civilians. "These are just a few examples where there seems to be a strong possibility that international humanitarian law has been violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes. "Every one of these incidents must be properly and independently investigated." According to Gaza officials, 475 houses have been destroyed and 2,644 damaged, while 46 schools, 56 mosques...

GENEVA, July 23 (Reuters) - The United Nations on Wednesday launched an international inquiry into human rights violations and crimes that may have been committed by Israel during its military offensive in the Gaza Strip. The U.N. Human Rights Council condemned the Israeli assault which it said had involved "disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks", including aerial bombing of civilian areas, collective punishment, and the killing of more than 650 Palestinians. At the end of an emergency session, the 47-member forum adopted a resolution presented by Palestinians by a vote of 29 states in favor, 1 against (the United States) with 17...

Parts of central London were brought to a standstill on Saturday as thousands of pro-Palestinians marched in protest against Israel’s offensive in Gaza, while in Paris a banned demonstration descended into violence. Organizers of the London rally claimed that “tens of thousands” of people joined the march from Prime Minister David Cameron’s office to the Israeli embassy, many of them chanting “Israel is a terror state”. Police refused to give an estimate for the number present but several roads through the centre of the capital were closed during the three-mile (4.8-kilometer) march, which passed off peacefully. …

The United States is helping Chile build a major solar power plant in the Atacama Desert, US President Barack Obama said. In his meeting with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, Obama said the 141-megawatt plant would "help meet their energy needs." The 230 million dollars in backing will come from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a US government arm that mobilizes private capital for development projects. Bachelet noted strong economic ties with the United States through a 10-year-old free trade agreement. Chile has further strong trade programmes with California and Massachusetts. Obama saluted Chile as a "model of democracy in...

In New Mexico almost no food, no meal is without the influence of the famous chile pepper. So it should be no surprise that New Mexico claims the invention of the Breakfast Burrito. It is the wrapped wonder that brings spice to the morning. It is now a staple on menus across the Southwest, and showing up frequently on menus nationwide. Even fast food chains now offer versions. Now, to celebrate this success and its New Mexico heritage, we have created the New Mexico True Breakfast Burrito Byway.

Seemed like a good idea at the time. Last week in Copenhagen, 1,000 people gathered in a public square to participate in a collective act that some might call idiotic and others brave. Together, bound in solidarity, they each ate one ghost chili pepper — one of the spiciest chili peppers on Earth. Also called the "bhut jolokia," the ghost pepper grows in the Indian states of Assam and Nagland and, from 2007 till it was dethroned in 2012 by the Trinidad moruga scorpion, it was certified as the hottest pepper in the world by Guinness World Records. It measures...

One of the forgotten battles of the first world war was fought for Chilean dirt. It wasn't just any dirt, though – it was caliche, a whitish substance rich in the crucial mineral sodium nitrate. Nitrates are the active ingredient of bombs and bullets.

<p>February 20, 2004 -- Remember "Missing," the 1982 movie by left-wing director Costa-Gavras, which starred Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek? The hit film accused the U.S. government of complicity in the disappearance and murder of a young New Yorker in the days following the 1973 military coup that toppled Chile's Marxist president, Salvador Allende, from power.</p>

Firefighters battled deadly forest fires in Valparaiso, Chile for a second night after coastal winds whipped up the flames again. At least 12 people were killed and 500 injured as the blaze swept through the hills above the city, destroying 2,000 homes and forcing 10,000 people to flee.

M7.8 - 23km S of Iquique, Chile 2014-04-03 02:43:15 UTC Event Time 2014-04-03 02:43:15 UTC 2014-04-02 23:43:15 UTC-03:00 at epicenter 2014-04-02 19:43:15 UTC-07:00 system time Location 20.430°S 70.113°W depth=20.0km (12.4mi) Nearby Cities 23km (14mi) S of Iquique, Chile 184km (114mi) N of Tocopilla, Chile 217km (135mi) S of Arica, Chile 256km (159mi) NNW of Calama, Chile 481km (299mi) SSW of La Paz, Bolivia

07:30 pm: Copper mining unaffected by quake The quake seems to not have impacted Chile's flourishing copper mining industry as state-owned copper miner, Codelco, said there were no reports of injuries to employees or damage to its operations in the area affected, reported the Wall Street Journal. 05:00 pm: Bigger quake waiting in the wings? The northern Chile that had been witnessing tremors since last two weeks on Tuesday was rattled by a stronger quake of magnitude 8.2 earthquake. But if a geophysicist is to be believed, a bigger quake might be waiting in the wings. According to the CNN,...

A wave of more than six feet in height has hit the port of Iquique in Chile. It is a key copper exporting port, close to the country's main copper mines. Mining companies Codelco and BHP Billiton said that had not yet received reports of damage to mines.

Chile just had a 5.2 earthquake in the same spot they had an 8.0 earthquake earlier tonight! http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/#%7B%22feed%22%3A%221day_m25%22%2C%22search%22%3Anull%2C%22sort%22%3A%22newest%22%2C%22basemap%22%3A%22grayscale%22%2C%22autoUpdate%22%3Atrue%2C%22restrictListToMap%22%3Atrue%2C%22timeZone%22%3A%22local%22%2C%22mapposition%22%3A%5B%5B-65.6582745198266%2C-284.765625%5D%2C%5B66.51326044311188%2C-11.6015625%5D%5D%2C%22overlays%22%3A%7B%22plates%22%3Atrue%7D%2C%22viewModes%22%3A%7B%22list%22%3Atrue%2C%22map%22%3Atrue%2C%22settings%22%3Afalse%2C%22help%22%3Afalse%7D%7D

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A massive magnitude 8.0 earthquake on Tuesday off the coast of Chile, near the mining port of Iquique, sparked a tsunami warning for all of Latin America's Pacific coast, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said. "An earthquake of this size has the potential to generate a destructive tsunami that can strike coastlines near the epicenter within minutes and more distant coastlines within hours," it said.

Very shallow at 10km! Offshore...

The “Art school, President General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte” is set to open on the southern island of Chiloe.

After considerable research time we reached a series of conclusions that are the same obtained in the United States, and which are: this photograph is real and not a hoax; Second, that the incidence of the light in these clouds is the same as that which falls upon the object; Third, that it has its own light, and therefore a series of portholes are visible.” “This is according to our Ph.D in meteorology, and according to the clouds existing at the time during that season in the Cordillera, makes it twice the size of the National Stadium (in Chile),” CEFFAA...

Explanation: As dawn broke on March 27, the center of the Milky Way Galaxy stood almost directly above the European Southern Observatory's Paranal Observatory. In the dry, clear sky of Chile's Atacama desert, our galaxy's dusty central bulge is flanked by Paranal's four 8 meter Very Large Telescope units in this astronomical fisheye view. Along the top, Venus is close to the eastern horizon. The brilliant morning star shines very near a waning crescent Moon just at the edge of one of the telescope structures. Despite the bright pairing in the east, the Milky Way dominates the scene though. Cut...