The driest place on earth is the McMurdo Dry Valleys in a small section of Antarctica. They are so named because of their extremely low humidity and lack of both snow and ice cover. It is thought that it has been several thousand years or longer since rain fell on these small valleys. Scientists consider the Dry Valleys to be the closest of any terrestrial environment to that of Mars.

Contrary to what many people may think, the Sahara Desert did not even make the list for the top 10 driest places on earth.

The second driest place is the Atacama Desert in Chile. The Atacama Desert holds the worlds record for a non-polar location for the longest period of time without rainfall. In the early 1900's, this desert went 173 months without a drop of rain. In March of 2015, the desert received 1 " of rain and flowers bloomed profusely in the desert which is an event that happens only once every 5 to 7 years.