Political documentarian Patricio Guzmán travels 10,000 feet above sea level to the driest place on earth, the Atacama Desert, where astronomers from all over the world gather to observe the stars. The Atacama is also a place where the harsh heat of the sun keeps human remains intact, including those of political prisoners "disappeared" by the Chilean army after the military coup in 1973. So while astronomers examine the most distant and oldest galaxies, women, surviving relatives of the disappeared whose bodies were dumped there, search for the remains of their loved ones.