The underwater cemetery where space junk goes to die
Over 4,000km from New Zealand - at the most isolated point in the world - lies a very unique underwater graveyard used by some of the world’s biggest superpowers.
It’s the most isolated place on Earth.
Over 4,000km from New Zealand in the southwest Pacific Ocean lies the world’s “space cemetery”.
Known as Point Nemo – Latin for “no one” – or the Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility, the remote stretch of ocean is the final resting place for hundreds of pieces of space junk.
Located 2,688 kilometres from the nearest island – Ducie Island – the watery graveyard is “pretty much the farthest place from any human civilisation you can find”, according to NASA.
Its isolation, coupled with its depths of over 4,000 metres, makes Point Nemo the ideal location for nations, including the US, Russia and Japan, to dump unwanted space objects with limited risk of hitting an inhabited area.
“It’s this very smart solution, and basically, when the satellites come to the end of life,” Dr Yang Yang, a Space Engineering Lecturer at the University of New South Wales who specialises in astrodynamics, spacecraft navigation, and space situational awareness, told news.com.au.
“It’s in the middle of the ocean so it’s quite safe.”
Once the junk splashes down, it descends to the bottom of the ocean floor.
“There’s not much point to reuse it,” said Dr Yang. “After it has already come down and met with the high temperature (from re-entering Earth’s atmosphere), there’s not many useful components left.”
Since the 1970s, over 260 space objects have been dumped at Point Nemo.
This includes the Soviet-era Mir space station, which was decommissioned in 2021, as well as 140 Russian resupply vehicles, and six aircraft from the nation’s Salyut program.
Japan has also dumped six cargo transfer vehicles, while the European Space Agency (ESA) has sent five vehicles to the gravesite.
Point Nemo will even be the final resting place of the International Space Station when it is set to be decommissioned in 2031.
Where does space junk come from?
Right now, there are millions of pieces of space junk – any object left by humans in space, including decommissioned satellites, rocket-launching material or bits of debris – orbiting Earth.
According to the ESA, the amount of space debris in orbit is “quickly” on the rise.
In its 2025 report, the agency estimates there are 1.2 million space junk objects measuring over 1cm – which is “large enough to be capable of causing catastrophic damage”. Over 50,000 of those are larger than 10cm.
According to the UK’s National History Museum, there are about 3,000 dead satellites littering space.
When a satellite’s time ends, agencies may decide to send it further away to an altitude of 36,000 km above the Earth’s surface to the geostationary orbit, also known as the larger graveyard orbit, or slow it down, allowing it to fall out of orbit and return to Earth, where it may burn up completely in the atmosphere.
Space agencies looking to dump spacecraft at Point Nemo would monitor the spacecraft’s path and use onboard thrusters to guide it to land in the underwater gravesite.
However, not all space junk returns to Earth in such a controlled manner.
Earlier this week, space junk crash-landed in Western Australia after a suspected uncontrolled re-entry.
Mine workers discovered the burning object 30km from the town of Newman in Western Australia’s remote Pilbara region, on Saturday, with the crash sparking a major investigation.
The Australian Space Agency told news.com.au, “the debris is likely a propellant tank or pressure vessel from a space launch vehicle”.
However, Flinders University space archaeologist Alice Gorman believes it came from a Chinese rocket called Jielong.
“The last launch was late September, so this has been barrelling around the earth and quite suddenly has got pulled back to the atmosphere,” she told ABC Radio Perth.
It’s not the first time space junk has crash-landed in Australia. In 1979, debris from the Tabar station landed in Western Australia and a SpaceX Dragon trunk was found in New South Wales in 2022. The following year, a 2.5m high cylinder, part of an Indian launch vehicle, washed up on a remote Western Australian beach.
Dr Yang believes Western Australia, our nation’s largest state, has been exposed to space junk due to its proximity to the Indian Ocean.
“I think that they (agencies) plan to enter those upper stages of rocket bodies into the Indian Ocean … but due to the uncertainty (of re-entry) they eventually landed on the ground”.
“The event that happened two years ago in Western Australia is maybe a reflection of countries like China and India basically having more emerging launch opportunities,” he suggested.
A ‘big problem’
Dr Yang said space junk, which is only increasing with space exploration, is both a“big” and “global problem”.
“You see many unexpected landings of space objects coming to the ground and we couldn’t predict them well. It poses stress to life and to the infrastructure on the ground.”
Just last year, a cargo pallet containing batteries from the International Space Station tore through a home in Florida, in the US, crashing through the roof and two floors.
Dr Yang said space junk can also pose problems in space as it could collide with a satellite.
This could potentially create even more debris and collisions, causing a cascading effect that could bring space exploration to a halt.
Dr Yang said this is known as the ‘Kessler Effect’, “where one collision will trigger many more collisions in a row, which will prevent us from accessing space resources for many decades”.
“This is a theoretical concept … but I feel the probability is higher than before because we have so many launches and we have SpaceX sending satellites, he said of Elon Musk’s company, which now has launched over 10,000 satellites in orbit.
“This already makes the space environment more congested and more contaminated,” he added.
More solutions needed
While Dr Yang believes the Point Nemo gravesite is a “smart solution” for unwanted space objects, he recognises issues could arise if it continues.
“Definitely, there’ll be pollution to Earth’s environment,” he said, adding “there’s some studies looking into how much pollution is generated by the launch and how much pollution for the re-entry”.
He noted some commercial companies are looking at a solution to clean up the junk in orbit by sending satellites to capture some of the debris and return it to Earth.
“But it’s quite difficult for such kind of mission because the cost is still high,” he said.
“If you think about the money for value for them to manufacture a satellite that is capable for them to do such junk cleaning in space, it’s quite expensive. Then think about how much junk they can bring back. From a business model perspective, it’s probably not that efficient.”
“In addition to the companies, some agencies have also done scoping missions or past finder missions to deal with the junk using the nets or some other mechanisms,” he added.
“I think this is a way (to clean up space) but so far, it’s not that economically efficient”.
As space exploration and space junk continues to increase, Dr Yang has called for more funding and research into tracking space debris, with only 40,000 are tracked by space agencies, according to the ESA.
“Australia has a large territory and we can utilise this big geographical benefit to track space objects. Then we can give a better understanding of their behaviours and that can really help us to solve the problem associated with space junk.”
“It’s a very challenging one.”
Originally published as The underwater cemetery where space junk goes to die
