Point Nemo: A modern cemetery for space debris

- Future Science-KR Chowdhury

That was almost 30 years ago. Taco Bell, the company that runs the American fast food chain restaurant, announced that if any part of the Russian Mir station that crashed into the ocean hit the floating target of 40 feet by 20 feet in the South Pacific, every American citizen would be hit by Taco Bell. The company will offer Mexican dish 'Taco' for free !. At that time, the cost of providing free food to 30 million people living in the United States was estimated at કરોડ 10 million. The Taco Bell Company was fortunate that no part of the Mir station collided with the Taco Bell target. Attempts were made to place the Taco Bell's 20-foot-30-foot floating target as close as possible to Point Nemo, an uninhabited area in the South Pacific Ocean. There is a special purpose here to remember this. The United States will launch the International Space Station, which will be back in space by the end of 2020, out of its orbit, sinking into an unknown, desolate place in the South Pacific Ocean called Point Nemo. As soon as this news was published in the media, people's curiosity about 'Point Nemo' increased. What is 'Point Nemo' after all?

Where the International Space Station will be buried!

Point Nemo: Modern Cemetery

In less than ten years, the International Space Station will crash into the Point Nemo area of ​​the Pacific Ocean on Earth. The area is known by scientists as the 'Space Graveyard'. This area is not the deepest part of the ocean. Its only peculiarity is that from its surrounding land area, Point Nemo is located at a distance of 20 kilometers or about 1.5 miles. By comparison, Point Nemo is 60 miles from New Zealand, 15 miles from the island near the world-famous Easter Island, 9 miles off the coast of Argentina, and 12 miles from the South Pole's Maher Island. The International Space Station orbits the Earth at a distance of about 50 miles (200 km) from the Earth's surface. In other words, it is only 200 kilometers away from the earth. When the International Space Station collapses in the South Pacific Ocean in 2020, it will be seven times farther away from the nearest human habitation site (the current distance of 200 km). Until the 19th, no one knew where 'Point Nemo' came from in the South Ocean. Engineer Rhvage Lucatella, using specialized software, discovered the most accurate latitude and longitude of Point Nemo in the South Pacific Ocean. The software he used to get the exact figure included the elliptical shape of the planet Earth. Thus Rhwaj Lukatella easily determined the location of 'Point Nemo' from his desk. Although this place is mentioned, for the first time in 18 H.P. A short story by Lovecraft was made in The Call of Thulhu.

City of Raleigh: Fictional city of ancient civilization

Mention the latitude and longitude that meet the place where 'Point Nemo' is located, the American author H.P. Lovecraft did. Where the city of Rayleigh, an ancient civilization, was located. As a writer of fiction, science fiction, horror story and fantastic stories, H.P. Lovecraft is well known. He created the character of a monster living in the ocean, with a human organ and a sea animal head. This sea monster is known as 'Thulhu'. The 47 ° 9'S and 126 ° 43'W coordinates given by Lovecraft to Rayleigh are surprisingly close to the point names. Its latitude-longitude is 48 ° 52.6'S and 123 ° 23.6'W. Point Nemo is named after Captain Nemo, the famous submarine sailor of Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. It has nothing to do with the Hollywood animated film 'Finding Nemo'.

Point Nemo is officially referred to as the "oceanic pole of inaccessibility". No human lives near it. Nemo is a Latin word. Which means 'no one'. Because Point Nemo is known as the 'least biologically active region of the world ocean'. In the 19th century, scientists were amazed. They discovered the loudest explosion in the water near Point Nemo. The sound was captured by underwater microphones at a distance of 3,000 miles. How could there be such a loud noise in the water? The ambiguous scientists of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were unable to understand it. This is why they called the mysterious voice 'The Bloop'. It was finally discovered that the creation of 'The Bloop' was recorded by breaking a sheet of ice in the polar region.

Space Junk: Finally returns to Earth

Every year, 100 to 200 tons of space junk re-enter the Earth's atmosphere uncontrollably. At present, the number of space junk orbiting the Earth is at least 3,000 pieces. Which is the size of a softball or larger. Whose collision could completely destroy the satellite. In addition, more than half a million pieces of scrap metal are floating in space. Which could pose a threat to a space station or satellite. The number of particles of space waste, the size of sugar grains, is more than ten crores. A collision with which it could pierce a spacewalk astronaut's space suit over the space station. Almost every day some space debris enters and burns into the Earth's atmosphere. Which is why people don't pay attention to it. Only large-scale space debris, when it enters the Earth's atmosphere, survives.

Where to put the scrap left over from the heat in the atmosphere? That problem plagued scientists. Because of this, scientists needed to choose an area where the risk of a human being being struck by space-debris is extremely low. With a human population of zero, Point Nemo suggests a perfect solution to this problem for scientists. Point Nemo is an area of ​​the ocean where there is no land island nearby. Point Nemo is an invisible place in the South Pacific Ocean. Because there is no geographical indication to identify this place. Since 191, more than six pieces of space debris have been sunk in the Point Nemo area, including Russia's Mir space station and NASA's first space station, Skylab. Parts of the Space X rocket include the Tiangong-1 Chinese Orbital Laboratory, five European space agency cargo ships, six Japanese HTV cargo craft, more than 150 Russian response craft, six Russian salute space stations and a Soviet-era "sphincter". .

International Space Station: Will end its life in 2030

NASA will dispose of the ISS at Point Nemo by the end of 2020, using a specific method. When the 16th International Space Station was launched, it was designed to have a lifespan of only 15 years. Yet NASA has been eager to use it for almost three decades. Yuri Gagarin, a citizen of Soviet Russia, made his first spaceflight on April 14, 191. Since then, about 200 astronauts have traveled in space. More than 50 people have visited ISS so far. NASA is now considering adding a commercial module to the NGG facility. It will also allow Hollywood or other filmmakers to shoot in space. In addition, NASA, in collaboration with another company, is preparing a space tourist for a space trip at a hefty cost.

A company called Orbital Assembly Corporation is planning to set up a 'Voyager Station' in space for space tourism. About 200 people will be able to stay in the luxury space hotel. On April 2021, China launched its space station. The Long March-2 rocket, which is 108 feet high and weighs about 40 tons, was used at the launch. As the rocket ran out of fuel, the rocket went out of control. Pulling by the gravity of the earth, the rocket finally crashed into the Indian Ocean. Then in June 2021, NASA warned China that it should control rockets and other space debris and dispose of them at places like Point Nemo. Of course, space debris will also increase in the future. Under such circumstances, Point Nemo became a graveyard for the burial of space debris, a great help to the human species in preserving the environment.