Scientists agree: this remote spacecraft cemetery in the Pacific is “the least biologically active region of the world ocean”

In the southern Pacific Ocean, there is a place known as the oceanic pole of inaccessibility, or more colloquially, Point Nemo, named after Captain Nemo from the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas by Jules Verne. It was discovered in 1992 by a Croatian-Canadian engineer Hrvoje Lukatela who was testing a geospatial computer program that he created.

Point Nemo is the point on Earth that is furthest from any land, the closest speck of land is Ducie Island (Pitcairn Islands), which is a whopping 1,670 miles (2,688 kilometers) away. While the exact point was found just over 30 years ago, space agencies have known about the spot for much longer and it has been a useful place for getting rid of retired spacecraft.

Point Nemo: Where spacecraft go to die

Humanity has a serious problem as we endeavor to become spacefarers, some 9,000 metric tons of space junk orbiting the planet. When spacecraft are no longer operational something has to be done with them so that they don’t pose a risk to other objects we have floating around up there.

The easiest thing to do is simply let them crash down to Earth. But you don’t want the space debris raining over a populated area where someone might get hurt, nor causing environmental harm. This is where Point Nemo comes in perfectly, almost as the video below explains.

This location lies within the South Pacific Ocean Uninhabited Area. There is pretty much nothing there, not even many sea creatures to speak of as the waters lack much in the way of nutrients. Not only is it far from land but it is also located in the middle of the South Pacific Gyre where nutrients are pulled away by the ocean currents, essentially creating an ocean desert.

Additionally, it is out of the way for going from one place to another via ship, further reducing the chance of anyone being there when a satellite, or say a football field-sized structure like the International Space Station in 2031, is deorbited.

The Soviet Union was the first to make use of Point Nemo to “bury” a decommissioned spacecraft. In 1971, the nation’s first space station, Salyut 1, ended its existence in the waters near the oceanic pole of inaccessibility. Since then, over 260 spacecraft have been retired in this remote stretch of the South Pacific, earning it the nickname the “spacecraft cemetery.”

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