There is a spacecraft graveyard in the South Pacific Ocean. Known as “Point Nemo”, it is the furthest place on the Earth from land.
It is home to over 300 spacecraft and associated space debris, including the MIR space station, the first-ever object assembled in planetary orbit by Russian cosmonauts.
Point Nemo is named after author Jules Verne’s famous seafaring anti-hero Captain Nemo. The name means ‘no-one’ in Latin, which is fitting for a place so rarely visited by people.
Point Nemo is located over 1,600km equidistantly from the coasts of three far-flung islands. Ducie Island (one of the Pitcairn islands), Motu Nui (of the Easter Island chain) and Maher Island (off the coast of Antarctica).
This oceanic pole of inaccessibility was officially discovered in 1992 by survey engineer Hrvoje Lukatela.
Point Nemo is so far from land, the nearest humans are often astronauts. The International Space Station orbits the Earth at a maximum of 416km. Meanwhile the nearest inhabited landmass to Point Nemo is over 2,700 km away.