The Most Remote Place on Earth: Point Nemo
Point Nemo lies in the South Pacific and is farther from any landmass than anywhere else on the planet. As the oceanic pole of inaccessibility, it sits roughly 2,688 kilometers from the nearest shore, with the seafloor around 4,000 meters below the surface. This unusual spot has become known as the spacecraft cemetery: between 1971 and 2016, over 260 space vehicles were deliberately sent to rest here.
Sunken Craft in the Abyss
The wreckage beneath the waves includes Soviet orbital stations such as Salyut and Mir. The area is also used as a target for controlled deorbits, making it possible to avoid the danger of debris crashing onto land. In the early 2030s, the International Space Station (ISS) is scheduled to be removed from orbit and guided toward this remote ocean location.
While the ISS is still active, its astronauts are sometimes the closest humans to Point Nemo, since the station circles Earth about 400 kilometers above the surface. Once the ISS is taken out of service, the bulk of the station is expected to burn up during atmospheric re-entry, and any pieces that survive will fall into a designated safe zone. Much of the water around Point Nemo lies outside any nation's territorial limits, which makes it an ideal destination for such operations.
Space agencies routinely need an unpopulated, unclaimed ocean region when disposing of large, retired spacecraft, and Point Nemo fulfills that role perfectly. It gives the space industry a secure way to handle objects that can no longer operate, protecting people on land and limiting environmental impact. With the ISS destined for these waters, continued tracking and study will be vital to ensure future deorbit missions remain safe.