On the sea in the middle of the South Pacific, there is a place known as the loneliest place in the world. Surrounded by sea, this place is 2688 km from the nearest landmass, and the closest humans to this place live in a space station at 400 km altitude.
Some scientists have probed this place and found that strange noises are constantly heard here, so scientists say that there is a 76-meter-long sea monster, where is it? Are there really sea monsters? Why does the strange noise keep coming out?
Speaking of the loneliest place in the world, what scene comes to your mind? Is it a vast expanse, an uninhabited desert, an endless grassland, or an unreachable deep sea. There is in fact a place where all your fantasies of loneliness and remoteness can be fulfilled.
This place is Point Nemo, which is Latin for “no one”. The name shows how desolate this place is, and its official name is also known as “The Unreachable Ocean”. Point Nemo is known as the loneliest place in the world because even its nearest landmass is 2688 kilometers away, and its closest human habitation is 400 kilometers in outer space. Not only is it the most remote place in the world, it’s also the hardest place to get to in the world.
It wasn’t until 1992 that humans had what it took to reach Point Nemo, but never actually got there. But since this is an empty place, how was it observed and discovered by humans?
An Asian surveying engineer from Croatia, Canada: Horvo Yelucatella, based on a self-designed geospatial program – “Hipparchus” to measure the most distant ocean point.
He believes that to find the ocean point furthest from the urban area of the earth, it must be equidistant from three different coastlines. The place he found after his measurements was Point Nemo, the three closest islands to it. These are Dicey Island in the Pitcairn Islands, Motonui Island in the Easter Islands, and Maher Island in Antarctica. A circle with a radius of 2,688 kilometers with Nemo as the center is the most remote place in the world.
In addition to being remote, Nemo Point is lifeless. Maybe someone here will ask: Even if it is difficult for humans to reach, but Point Nemo is located in the center of the ocean, there should be many schools of fish living here, right?
In fact, Point Nemo is located in the South Pacific Circumference, where a huge ocean current blocks the input of nutrient-rich seawater, and it is very far away from land. The water is deficient in nutrients, and there is no way to nourish marine life.
So the ocean here is dead and lifeless. In addition to some microorganisms living in submarine craters, they are also a few organisms living in Point Nemo because they can live on marine hydrothermal vents.
It’s odd that in the 1990s, this uninhabited sea made the sound of mythical creatures. Just about 2011 kilometers east of Point Nemo. The sound was louder and louder than the blue whale’s. You know, the blue whale is already the largest known animal in the world and the loudest species in the world. And the sea monster that appeared at Nemo Point was louder than the blue whale. Scientists named the sound “bloop”. Some scientists speculate that this is a sea monster with a length of 76 meters.
Seeing this, do you have a lot of associations? In the uninhabited Dead Sea area, a huge sea monster suddenly appeared. Perhaps it is hidden in the dark seabed, and it is hard not to think of the crazy imaginations of Western painters about seabed creatures in the past.
Those giant oil paintings full of giant octopuses or other monsters, for a while came to mind. It’s not just ordinary people who are full of fantasy, and it’s not just painters. Curious scientists are also desperately searching for the creature making the sound, but they have found nothing.
It wasn’t until 2008 that things took a turn for the better. In early 2008, a ice quake occurred near South Georgia Island. What is an ice shock?
It’s a bit similar to the sound made by the ripples in the water after a stone is dropped in the water and hitting the wall. And the sound brought by the ice shock, after analysis, it was found that it was very similar to the sea monster sound from Nemo’s touch. Therefore, some scientists speculate that the so-called bloop is the sound caused by the ice shock.
I have to say that this is not only an extreme challenge for human beings, but also an unprecedented miracle. We also look forward to the day when a more thorough inspection of Point Nemo can be conducted in the field.
The boats that competed in the Round the World Yacht Race from 2014 to 2015 passed through Point Nemo. It took the ships 15 days, 50 hours, 37 minutes to reach Point Nemo.
It is not difficult to imagine how skilled and experienced crew members must have to be able to reach Nemo. After all, getting to Point Nemo is difficult not only because of the distance, but also because of the mass of ice floes there.
It has to be said that this is not only an extreme challenge for human beings, but also an unprecedented miracle. We also look forward to the day when a more thorough inspection of Point Nemo can be conducted in the field.
In addition to the above mysterious deeds about Point Nemo, there are many places that can be discussed in Point Nemo. You may not think that the geographical location of Point Nemo is of great significance to human beings.
And this glory is what its loneliness brings to it. In the deep sea of Nemo Point, there are many wreckages of spacecraft buried – this is the cemetery of aerospace equipment
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The aerospace technology in various countries has been developing rapidly, but the recovery of spacecraft has always been a headache. Because most space equipment, such as artificial satellites and so on.
It would be expensive to return it to Earth for recycling. Therefore, waiting for the day when these devices reach the end of their life, they will be classified as space junk and discarded. The usual method is to let it pass directly through the atmosphere and abandon it on the ground.
Because in the past few decades, people have launched too many spacecraft. The mass of space junk that fell to Earth from space reached 5,400 tons.
These spaceflight equipment is different from the manned spaceflight equipment, which is not protected by heat insulation and other measures. When they fall to the ground, they will burn and hit the ground into a large crater. This poses a huge threat to human safety.
For personal safety, these aerospace equipment must fall into no-man’s land, and Point Nemo is recognized as a space equipment grave, because it is really very suitable for spacecraft burial requirements.
On March 23, 2001, the space station Mir, after 15 years of hard work, began its final life a journey. The 120-ton space station falls from the sky into the atmosphere, and then burns up like a meteor. In the blink of an eye, a white light brushed from the edge of the sky and fell into the sea. Everything was silent, as if nothing had happened.
The wreckage of the Mir space station now lies quietly on the bottom of Point Nemo. Not only foreign space equipment, but some of our country’s space equipment are buried at Nemo Point. For example, Chang’e 1, and September 2017Tianzhou 1 returned this month, and their wreckage fell precisely into the spacecraft cemetery near Point Nemo.
The current Nemo Point is still quietly staying there. It is lifeless and uninhabited, hoping that one day, we will be able to go deep into its seabed and explore its mystery and beauty.
References:
[1]. Mysterious Nemo Point[J]. Lin, 2022(06): 52-53.
[2] Ma Xiaomo. Nemo Point: The Loneliest Place on Earth[J]. Composition and Exam, 2021(15):57.
[3] Kuya. Earth Nemo Point: World Spacecraft Cemetery [J]. Northerners (Yue Reading), 2019(02 ):52.
[4]Nemo Point is the farthest place on the earth’s surface from humans, but it has become a “forbidden zone for life” in the ocean. Popular Science China
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Author: Xiaoguo proofreading editor: Xiaowan