Most remote place on Earth where the nearest humans are actually in space

Very occasionally we all need to take a bit of time away from other people and go somewhere peaceful to chill out for a bit.

It's imperative to find a bit of time for yourself in the hurly-burly of modern life where everyone and everything is demanding your attention.

However, there's one place in the world which is so far removed from human contact that if you went there the nearest person would be an astronaut in space.

Located in the Pacific Ocean, this quiet place might just be the most remote spot on Earth to the point that if you wanted to get directly to the closest person you'd be blasting off.

This loneliness does make the place a very tempting target for our intergalactic waste, as we can drop bits of spaceships down towards it without being worried about striking anyone by accident.

Getty Stock Image

Basically, if we're wanting to ditch an object from space and send it crashing back down to Earth we know exactly where to send it.

That's because the area around this spot has become a 'spacecraft cemetery' where a number of space stations and craft have been deposited.

Between 1971 and 2016 over 260 spacecraft were disposed in the 'cemetery' and it's where the International Space Station is set to end up if and when that reaches the end of its operational life.

If you want to visit this place for yourself and dodge the raining spacecraft then plot a course for the Pacific Ocean and head for Point Nemo.

The place is named after the explorer Captain Nemo from the Jules Verne adventure novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Google Maps

There is nowhere on Earth you can go that will be further away from dry land and the people who live on it as Point Nemo.

Closest to Point Nemo is the minuscule Ducie Island which is over 1,600 miles away.

By contrast, the International Space Station and the astronauts living on board can be as close as 250 miles away, so as long as means of travel was no issue you'd be quicker to get into space than the nearest piece of land.

If you were hoping to go to this place and find it for yourself then hard luck, because Point Nemo isn't actually a speck of dry land and is just the place experts calculated was furthest away from anywhere else.

You can punch in the coordinates 45º52.6S, 123º23.6W if you're dead set on going, just make sure you don't expect to see dry land anywhere.

Topics: World News, Space, Weird

Joe Harker

Joe graduated from the University of Salford with a degree in Journalism and worked for Reach before joining the LADbible Group. When not writing he enjoys the nerdier things in life like painting wargaming miniatures and chatting with other nerds on the internet. He's also spent a few years coaching fencing. Contact him via [email protected]

@MrJoeHarker