Deep in the South Pacific Ocean is a point on the Earth’s surface farther from land than any other location. Called the Nemo point, it lies about 2,688 kilometers (1,450 nautical miles) from the nearest landmass, making it the most remote and isolated place on the planet. If you’ve ever used the phrase ‘mid-ocean’, this is also the most accurate term to describe the Nemo point.
According to data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the exact position of what we call the “Inaccessibility Pole of the Pacific Ocean” is 48 degrees 52.6 South latitudes and 123s degree 23.6 minutes West longitude.
Nemo Point: Inaccessible Ocean Pole
Named after the famous captain in Jules Verne’s novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Point Nemo was first identified by Hrvoje Lukatela, a Croatian-Canadian surveying engineer, in 1992.
Lukatela coded his own geospatial software to allow him to pinpoint the exact coordinates of the point furthest from the mainland by calculating the point to lie at the same distance as the three nearest coastlines. Accordingly, the Nemo point is the place with the largest calculated distance of all measured coordinates.
Point Nemo, also known as the “Ocean Unreachable Point”, is located at 48°52.6′ south latitude and 123°23.6′ west longitude, approximately 2,688 km from the nearest land. This is a 2 km long strip of land called Ducie Island, one of the Pitcairn Islands, located north of Point Nemo.
The nearest inhabited land is more than 3,090 km (1,670 nautical miles), on Easter Island. However, the nearest permanent settlement is only 415 kilometers away – the distance from Point Nemo to the International Space Station.
The name “Nemo” in Latin means “no one”, reflecting the fact that the site is so remote that there is no trace of humans within thousands of miles in any direction.
The humans closest to Nemo are not on Earth, but astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS).
Where spacecraft and satellites ‘die’
Point Nemo’s remote location makes it an ideal location for space debris to land safely. In fact, the site is so remote that it has been designated a “spaceship graveyard” by the international space community. Satellites and other space debris that fall out of orbit is usually headed toward point Nemo so that it can safely crash into the ocean without harming any populated areas.
This is quite useful because a spacecraft that is about to crash never lands at a specific point but breaks up into thousands of pieces as they enter the atmosphere, the falling area of which can be tens of miles wide and thousands of miles long.
Marine life at Point Nemo is the least biodiverse ocean region in the world, according to expert Steven D’Hondt, at Point Nemo, there is no species diversity, no surface or ocean floor. It’s a “nearly lifeless” space.
This is often done by NASA, who, for example, will time their satellite or spacecraft to make a controlled entry just above the Nemo point. A number of spacecraft that have “died” at point Nemo include several European Space Agency cargo ships, more than 140 Russian Soyuz spacecraft, and the Soviet-era MIR space station.
And one of the upcoming guests will be the International Space Station the size of a football field, which is due to plunge into the Pacific Ocean near Point Nemo around 2031.
Although considered the most isolated place on Earth, Point Nemo still attracts a number of intrepid travelers willing to make the journey to this remote location. It is important to note that visiting Point Nemo is no easy feat, as it requires a long and expensive journey through some of the roughest seas on Earth. The journey is often undertaken by scientific expeditions, who are interested in studying ocean currents and the unique dynamics of the region.
The purpose of space agencies when using Nemo Point is to prevent debris from spacecraft falling to the Earth’s surface and endangering humans.
Point Nemo lies in the middle of the South Pacific Rotation, a large system of ocean currents circulating in the South Pacific that rotates clockwise around a central point in the ocean. Since it is so far from land, there is almost no dust or runoff from the land, so the water has extremely low concentrations of nutrients.
This makes the large area around Point Nemo a giant oceanic desert. No sharks or big fish. Phytoplankton, small algae that form the bottom of the marine food chain, are found only at depths of more than a hundred meters.
But despite its remoteness and lack of large marine life, the South Pacific currents are teeming with bacteria and other microorganisms that contribute significantly to global biogeochemical cycles. Small crabs have also been found near the undersea crater near Point Nemo.
If there’s anything Point Nemo doesn’t lack, it’s water. But the second most abundant material could be plastic. Up to 26 microplastics per cubic meter were found in seawater samples collected near Point Nemo. The most remote place on Earth is still awash in pollution, though not as much as the South China Sea, where there are about 350 plastic particles per cubic meter.