by Floro Mercene
The furthest point from land, the most remote place on Earth, is called the “Oceanic pole of inaccessibility”, which has been nicknamed Point Nemo, after author Jules Verne’s famous seafaring anti-hero Captain Nemo. The name means “no-one” in Latin. The place is so rarely visited by people.
“It is in the Pacific Ocean and is pretty much the farthest place from any human civilization you can find,” NASA reiterated. Most fallen large satellites, space stations, and other space objects end up here. It is the final resting place for hundreds of retired satellites.
When a spacecraft completes its mission or runs out of fuel, it is sent to what NASA calls a Spacecraft Cemetery, three thousand miles off the Eastern coast of New Zealand and more than 2 miles deep. Since 1971, over 263 spacecraft from four nations have crashed here. Only the largest spacecraft ever make it here. Smaller satellites burn up completely before reaching the surface.
The Spacecraft Cemetery’s most famous resident is MIR, the 142-ton Russian space station. MIR was de-commissioned in 2001 and subsequently sent into what is called orbital decay, or spacecraft death. MIR was a massive object to bring back to Earth, requiring intensive calculations to make it back safely. The International Space Station (ISS) will eventually crash into the Pacific Ocean upon its decommissioning, expected sometime around 2028. By comparison, the ISS is four times larger, weighs almost 500 tons, and is the size of a football field. The scientists who have to plan the re-entry of the ISS acknowledge that the entry angle for this maneuver will have to be extremely precise but should result in all surviving debris ending up in the Pacific Ocean.
