Point Nemo: Earth’s most isolated location and satellite graveyard

Point Nemo, which is encircled by the Pacific Ocean, is located thousands of kilometres from any populated areas. Not even the explorers who first found it could get here. The site contains no data whatsoever on human beings, or any other kind of animal or bird. Nemo, here is where all the space trash ends up. The term “graveyard of satellites” is another name for this area. Nemo is a Latin word that signifies ‘nothing’ or ‘nothingness’. 

The coordinates, 48°52.6’S 123°23.6’W, put you smack dab in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight for more than a thousand miles in either direction. The closest landmasses to the pole are one of the Pitcairn Islands to the north.

The nearest humans to Nemo are not even on Earth, such is the remoteness of the area. Humans in the International Space Station (ISS) are far closer to the point Nemo at around 415 Km above the Earth’s surface. The nearest inhabited location to Point Nemo is more than 1,600 km distant.

By 2023, Japan will be able to ship satellites that minimise their impact on the environment. As early as the Covid era, researchers from Kyoto University and Sumitomo Forestry were hard at work on it. This data suggests that the satellite will be constructed from wood to ensure that its eventual decommissioning will not result in any space pollution. According to reports from Japan, the final destination of the satellite after construction is space.

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It is important to note that the rate at which space junk is accumulating is increasing at an alarming rate. Nearly every nation aspires to be the dominant power in space. Constantly, satellites are being sent. They don’t recycle correctly even after they’ve been damaged. NASA warns that the existing space junk might become a major concern in the future.

More than a hundred satellites have already been dumped on Nemo, and in 2031, when the International Space Station begins to dismantle, it will join too.