6 Interesting Facts About Point Nemo, the Space Cemetery

NASA has recently announced its plan for the International Space Station’s retirement in 2031. After spending the remaining time, approximately nine years from today, the US space agency’s transition report states that the ISS will proceed to its final resting place in the Pacific Ocean, specifically a region known as Point Nemo.

Since the size of the ISS is huge, it’s likely that not all of it will burn up when it orbits back to Earth. Hence, it will be sent to the most remote area, as Point Nemo is “the largest ocean area without any islands. It is just the safest where the long fallout zone of debris after a re-entry fits into,” said Holger Krag, Head of the European Space Agency’s Space Safety Program Office.

What is Point Nemo?

Point Nemo is described as “the oceanic pole of inaccessibility”. It’s located 3,000 miles off the coast of New Zealand, 2,000 miles north of Antarctica, and is surrounded by more than 1,000 miles of ocean, considerably requiring a great deal of effort to reach from the mainland. As an idea, pretend you are now at Point Nemo. To meet the nearest locals, you’ll need to travel almost 2,700 kilometers.

But if you, adventurers, wonder, “Can we actually visit Point Nemo?” Well, sadly, Point Nemo is not even visible because it is a coordinate point. It is not like a tiny peninsula or island where you can physically observe; rather, it is an invisible spot in the enormous Southern Ocean, far from human civilization and land in all directions.

Are you getting more interested in knowing about Point Nemo? Keep reading for more intriguing facts about this space graveyard.

Here are some interesting facts about Point Nemo

1 – The story behind the name “Nemo”

What comes to mind when you hear the name Nemo for this vast, remote location? Does the place of the clownfish that got lost and separated from its father come to your head? If that’s the case, it’s obviously not that one.

Nemo is Latin for “no one,” which rhymes with how remote it is from all human existence. Point Nemo is named after Captain Nemo, a fictional submarine captain from a best-selling sci-fi adventure novel written by Jules Verne, titled 20.000 Leagues Under the Sea (1872).

An American writer of science fiction, H.P. Lovecraft, also used Point Nemo in his 1928 short tale, as a place in the ancient city of R’lyeh, home to Cthulhu, the fabled tentacle-mouthed dragon man.

2 – Point Nemo is now 29 years old since being first discovered

Point Nemo did not exist until 1992, or perhaps it had been there long before, lying in the Pacific Ocean, but nobody noticed its existence. Hrvoje Lukatela, a Croatian-Canadian survey engineer, was the one who ultimately discovered Point Nemo using geospatial computer tools.

Yes, even Lukatela did not find Point Nemo by visiting; instead, by calculating its position using computer software.

3 – It’s a watery graveyard where dead spacecraft reside

Due to its remote yet vast location, since 1971, space junk has been deposited at Point Nemo. One of the reasons NASA and the other space agencies picked Point Nemo as the last dumping ground for satellites, spacecraft, and even space stations is its remote location. Point Nemo may be the right choice if you want to store something where no one can access it.

It is also the safest place to land decommissioned spacecraft that reenter Earth’s atmosphere. The essential aspect is that it is far from any inhabited place so as not to harm the inhabitants of the land.

There have been hundreds of spacecraft sitting at Point Nemo so far. One of them includes Russia’s Mir Space Station, which operated from 1986 to 2001 before its death.

4 – The residents nearby are not on the mainland

It’s another unique fact. If you are stranded alone at Point Nemo and want to be rescued by the nearest people, it won’t be anyone from the landmass but astronauts onboard the ISS. It’s due to the fact that the distance between the space station and Point Nemo is about 400 kilometers above Earth – about seven times closer than the distance between this isolated point and the land.

5 – Point Nemo is not a good place to stay

Life at Point Nemo barely evolves. Due to the natural circumstances, it is quite doubtful that people could survive there. The ocean currents are feeble, suggesting a shortage of nutrients in the water for marine animal growth. Besides, because the place is secluded from social life, human social needs will not be addressed either.

6 – People who managed to get close to Point Nemo

Because it is inaccessible, no one has ever paid a visit to Point Nemo, not even the point’s inventor. Athletes from a cross-ocean sailing competition known as The Ocean Race are the only ones who have ever come close to this location.

This tournament is held every three to four years, with the next closest date being this October. The athletes will sail on a yacht around the world through the ocean, past the city of Auckland to Brazil, passing through the Earth’s largest oceanic division, the Pacific Ocean.

So, are you up for going to Point Nemo? First and foremost, make sure you have a strategy in place to return to the island, okay?