Point Nemo is a location in the southern Pacific Ocean that is farthest from land. It is surrounded by over 1600 km of ocean in every direction. Did you know Point Nemo is often referred to as the spacecraft cemetery? This is where hundreds of defunct satellites and spacecraft, including the first-ever inhabited space station Mir, have been dumped by space agencies since 1971.
In future, most spacecraft will be “designed for demise” with materials that melt at lower temperatures, making them far less likely to survive re-entry and hit Earth’s surface.
Both NASA and the ESA, for example, are switching from titanium to alumium in the manufacture of fuel tanks.
China hoisted Tiangong-1, it’s first manned space lab, into space in 2011. It was slated for a controlled re-entry but ground engineers lost control in March 2016 of the eight-tonne craft in March 2016, which is when it began its descent toward a fiery end.
The chances of anyone getting hit by debris from Tiangong-1 are vanishingly small, less than one in 12 trillion, according to the ESA.
“Nemo,” by the way, means “no one” in Latin.
Credit : Phys.org
Picture Credit : Google
