Point Nemo actually refers to an area of the South Pacific Ocean around 34 times larger than France, in which marine life is thought to have hardly evolved : its remoteness and weak ocean currents mean there are not enough nutrients in the water for more developed, larger wildlife to survive.

Scientists would like to learn more about the oceanic mechanisms at work in this region and its seabed. The oceanic pole of inaccessibility was officially discovered, through a process of deduction, in 1992, and hasn’t really been explored since.

The closest humans to Point Nemo don’t travel by boat: they are the astronauts in the International Space Station, who fly just under 400 km above the zone!

But that’s not all. Space agencies are very familiar with Point Nemo: they use it when calculating the trajectory of re-entry during their “de-orbiting” process. It is where decommissioned spacecraft go to die. For example, when the Russian space station, Mir, was decommissioned, the oceanic pole of inaccessibility was chosen as the spot for it to crash land to ensure the debris generated by its re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere didn’t cause damage on land.

As a result, a veritable spacecraft cemetery has been created over the years around Point Nemo. NASA favours it for the final resting place of the International Space Station, which must be dismantled or reconfigured in 2024. But the U.S. agency also plans to dump the space telescopes currently spearheading space-based astronomy in this region of the South Pacific.

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