Finding Nemo is almost impossible — Point Nemo, that is.

That’s the name of the place in the ocean that’s furthest away from any land. In fact, the three closest islands are each 2,700 km away.

One is off the coast of Antarctica, one is in the Easter Island chain, and the other is in the Pitcairn Islands. That makes Point Nemo one of the most remote spots on the planet — which is why it’s also a spacecraft cemetery, but more on that in a minute.

Situated in the South Pacific, the site is also known as the Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility. It’s just a place in the ocean, surrounded by nothing but more water. But if a person fell overboard while on a ship at sea, they would be as far away as possible from any land, in any direction.

To get to Point Nemo, it would take many weeks by boat, in treacherous seas. Even the man who discovered it in 1992 has never been there. He used a computer program to calculate its coordinates.

That man is Croatian survey engineer Hrvoje Lukatela. He named the location after the main character in one of his favourite childhood novels — Captain Nemo, in Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Fittingly, the name is from a Latin word meaning “no one”.

In a place where there’s literally no one, the closest human beings are often the astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) when it passes overhead, 260 miles straight up. And........

© Sarnia Observer