News Report

 the blog of the universe, Thursday March 23, 2023 

 Historical find: 

The most "inaccessible" place, the cemetery of space 

      -The loneliest place on the planet, 263 space debris have been dumped since 1971 

Where will the satellites that we no longer use go? 

Up there there are almost 5,500 active satellites in various Earth orbits, according to data from May 2022 by the Union of Conscious Scientists (UCS), a non-profit group of American scientists. They are many; But where will the satellites end up when they are no longer operated? 

The loneliest place in the world 

The Pacific pole of inaccessibility was officially designated in 1992 by the Croatian-Canadian surveying engineer Hrvoje Lukatela. To calculate its coordinates, it used a specialized computer program that incorporated the ellipsoid shape of the Earth for maximum precision. The point is located at the coordinates 48°52.6′S 123°23.6′W. Actually, this place cannot be seen, it is not a piece of land, it is an invisible point. Here, to the bottom of the ocean, it is 3,700 meters deep. And down there yes; there we could see... space junk, lots of it. These objects could not burn completely before reaching the ground. There is a solution; Spacecraft operators can plan the final destination of their old satellites to ensure that any debris falls into a remote area. This place even has a nickname; The spaceship graveyard! It's in the Pacific Ocean and it's about as far away from any human civilization as I can find. So is that the end for these faraway satellites? For what you and I are concerned that it is! However, some of these satellites will remain in orbit for a very, very long time. Perhaps someday in the future, humans will need to send "space garbage trucks" to clean them up. But for now, at least, they'll be out of the way.