Even if you don’t know the Salar de Uyuni by name, there’s a good chance you’ve seen a photo of it. Tourists flock to this massive salt flat in Bolivia to snap pictures of its mirror-like surface, only visible when covered with a thin layer of water.

Salar de Uyuni is the world’s largest salt desert, and for years, people have assumed it’s also the world’s largest natural mirror. I mean, check it out for yourself—you’ll see what I mean in the video below.

The wetted surface is incredibly reflective. That said, no one had ever set out to scientifically prove that it’s the world’s largest natural mirror—until recently.

Is Salar de Uyuni Really a Giant Mirror?

In a new study published September 19 in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment , researchers used data from the

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