Geography The Story
The Loneliest Place on Earth
In the South Pacific there's a point so far from land that the nearest humans are often astronauts. It's also where old spacecraft go to die.
[IMAGE: Map of the ocean shaded by distance from the nearest coast, with Point Nemo at the farthest point] (Gaianauta / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0; opens as a separate document)
![[IMAGE: Map of the ocean shaded by distance from the nearest coast, with Point Nemo at the farthest point]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Distancia_a_la_costa.png){kind=link}
Somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean, there is a point that is as far as you can possibly get from land.
It's called Point Nemo, after the submarine captain in Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas — nemo is Latin for "no one". It's about 2,688 kilometres from the nearest land in any direction: Ducie Island in the Pitcairn group to the north, Motu Nui near Easter Island to the north-east, and Maher Island off Antarctica to the south.
There's nothing there. Just water, roughly four kilometres deep.
The nearest humans are in orbit
The International Space Station orbits about 400 kilometres above Earth's surface. Ships almost never sail near Point Nemo — it lies far from shipping routes.
So when the ISS passes overhead, the closest human beings to anyone floating at Point Nemo are often the astronauts on board.
On the loneliest spot on Earth, your nearest neighbours are in space.
The spacecraft cemetery
That remoteness makes the area useful. When space agencies need to bring large satellites or spacecraft back to Earth in a controlled way, they aim for the ocean around Point Nemo, where falling debris is least likely to hit anyone.
FACT Established by documentary or physical evidence.
Who is down there
Hundreds of spacecraft are thought to lie scattered across the sea floor in this region, including the Russian space station Mir, which was brought down in 2001, and many uncrewed cargo ships. Plans call for the International Space Station itself to be guided down into this region at the end of its life.
You learned this today!!! YOU LEARNED THIS TODAY !!!
- Point Nemo is the oceanic point of inaccessibility — the spot in the ocean farthest from any land.
- It is about 2,688 kilometres from the nearest land.
- When the International Space Station passes overhead, its crew can be the nearest humans.
- The area around it is used as a "spacecraft cemetery" for controlled re-entries, including Russia's Mir space station in 2001.
- It was located in 1992 by survey engineer Hrvoje Lukatela using computer modelling.
One more thing
Wombats produce cube-shaped droppings.
→ Read something elseSources & further reading
- Pole of inaccessibility, Wikipedia
- Point Nemo, Wikipedia
- Spacecraft cemetery, Wikipedia
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