2023-07-30 20:55:00
The farthest place from any coast or civilization, known as Point Nemo or oceanic pole of inaccessibility, is characterized by its low biodiversity and by another series of data linked to its location. The three small islands of the South Pacific are uninhabited, so the nearest populated site is 2,688 kilometers away.
This point, whose coordinates are 48° 52.6′S 123° 23.6′W, it is at a distance of 1,600 kilometers from each of the coasts closest to it. These are: Ducie Island, in the Pitcairn archipelago (United Kingdom), to the north; Motu Nui, near Easter Island (Chile), to the northeast; and Maher Island, in Antarctica, to the south.
In 1992, the Canadian engineer of Croatian origin Hrvoje Lukatela first calculated the coordinates of that site with special software that took into account the ellipsoid shape of the Earth, thus achieving great precision.
“The location of three equilateral points is especially unique. There are no three points on the Earth’s surface that might replace them,” Lukatela said at the time, mentioning the equidistance between Point Nemo and the coasts that surround it.
One of the most striking peculiarities related to this place is that, when they pass over there, International Space Station astronauts become the closest humans to Point Nemo since they orbit a maximum of 416 kilometers from the globe.
The name derives from Jules Verne’s character, the famous Captain Nemo, the protagonist of his work Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and a prominent character in The Mysterious Island, an enigmatic man who traveled the seas in the Nautilus submarine.
space junk graveyard
Another of the details that make it striking is that, given its remoteness, the space agencies of Russia, Japan and the European ESA have chosen it as a graveyard for their spacecraft.
To reduce the risk of these vehicles, satellites, probes or space stations accidentally landing in an inhabited place upon returning to Earth, the oceanic pole of inaccessibility has been chosen for decades as the final resting place for the most advanced human technology. .
International space agencies have chosen Point Nemo as a graveyard for some of their devices.
Point Nemo is completely surrounded by water and the depths of the ocean in that region, which reach 3,700 meters, have practically not been explored. During the Cold War, the United States military installed microphones on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean to detect Soviet nuclear submarines, some of them near this location.
In 1997, these devices, operated by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), detected a mysterious ultra-low-frequency sound in their vicinity while performing maintenance.
At first, the technicians hypothesized that it might come from a kind of giant octopus or squid, but that was ruled out. So it was supposed that it might be the sound of the fracture of the icebergsbut the truth is that it is not known what it corresponds to.
Extreme conditions
This area does not represent optimal conditions for different species to settle there. Due to its location, in the center of the South Pacific Circular Current, it is blocked to the south by the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which prevents the arrival of cold currents loaded with nutrients. Besides, its remoteness from land masses prevents large amounts of windblown organic matter from reaching itmaking it one of the most biologically active ocean regions in the world.
Point Nemo is near the southern end of the Pacific-Atlantic Ridge, also known as the Albatross Ridge or the Easter Island Ridge. This underwater mountain range stretches from the Ross Sea, near Antarctica, to the Gulf of California, in a south-north direction along the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
Point Nemo is near the southern end of the Pacific-Atlantic Ridge, also known as the Albatross Ridge or the Easter Island Ridge.
On the Pacific-Atlantic Ridge, near Point Nemo, there are hydrothermal vents where magma and a mixture of mineral-laden gases and vapors rise from the ocean floor. A unique ecosystem develops in these fumaroles and hydrothermal vents in which living conditions are extremely harsh.
However, some extremophile bacteria are capable of obtaining energy from the chemicals released by the vents. These organisms are known as chemotrophs and obtain the energy necessary for their metabolism from inorganic compounds.
What makes these chemotrophs special is that they can obtain energy in the absence of sunlight. They are the primary producers of a food chain that does not depend on photosynthesis, which is the basis of most life on Earth. These organisms are eaten by other larger creatures, such as the yeti crab (Kiwa hirsuta), which was first observed in Pacific waters in 2005.
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