In 1992, Croatian-Canadian engineer Hrvoje Lukatela pinpointed the exact spot known as the pole of inaccessibility in the oceans. It marks the furthest point on Earth from any land surface.
This location sits in the central Pacific and is commonly called Punto Nemo. The name pays homage to Captain Nemo, the explorer from Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, while the Latin meaning of Nemo is interpreted as no one.
The coordinates 48°52.6′S 123°23.6′W define a line drawn to create the largest possible circle around the Pacific that avoids land. Nemo emerged from this calculation as the center of a vast 16,900-kilometer circle where no coastline interrupts the view.
Geographically, Nemo is about 2,700 kilometers from its three nearest islands: Ducie Island in the Pitcairn Islands group to the north, Motu Nui near Easter Island to the northeast, and Maher Island to the south.
It is often noted that the closest humans to this corner of the planet are astronauts aboard the International Space Station, roughly 400 kilometers above the Earth.
A space debris cemetery
In a cosmic sense, Nemo stands as a quiet repository for space junk. Debris from rockets and satellites that does not pose a risk to populated areas tends to drift away from bustling routes and settles in remote ocean depths.
In the depths around this point, remnants of historic missions can be found beneath the waves. One notable example is the Mir space station, once the flagship Soviet research outpost that hosted crews for long experiments before its retirement.
Mir was launched into space by the Soviet Union and, after about fifteen years, was retired from orbital duty. It was deliberately deorbited, and those events culminated with a controlled re-entry over the Pacific near Nemo in 2001, a careful disposal to limit risk on land.
Since its discovery thirty years ago, Nemo has hosted a range of spacecraft remains, with vessels and debris occasionally drifting into this remote zone and becoming part of the underwater landscape.
When it comes to life in the region, nutrients are scarce and the water is cold, contributing to a quieter ecosystem. The depth here reaches about 3,700 meters, making Nemo one of the ocean’s least biologically active zones and part of a broader pattern of deep-sea environments with limited species diversity.
……
Environment department contact address: [redacted]