When satellite and space craft have outlive their lifespan , they are ofttimes brought hurtle back to Earth . The smaller crafts breakup and disintegrate in the atmosphere , but with child ones supervise to make it all the way down to the surface , and often terminate up in what is now have it away asthe spacecraft graveyard .
so as to minimise the chance that any light bits of quad debris might accidentally dispatch someone , which amazingly has been forfend to date , the infinite representation in dominance of the re - entry picked the most remote part of Earth farthest from any country and , thus , people .
Known as the pelagic perch of inaccessibility , or“Point Nemo ” , it is place in the southern Pacific Ocean some 2,688 kilometers ( 1,670 miles ) from the cheeseparing bit of land , which is Ducie Island of the Pitcairn Islands , Motu Nui of the Easter Islands , and Maher Island of Antarctica . This closing off , couple with the fact that the currents move in such a way that there are few fish , and so few fisherman , means it has in effect become aspacecraft cemetery .
It is now call up that the sea floor of Point Nemo is the last rest place for at least 260 orbiter scattered over an area roughly 1,500 square kilometers ( 580 straightforward mi ) in size . But it is not only satellites that are brought down over this patch of ocean . Somewhere in this watery tomb lies the burn out and break up remains of the Mir space post .
Another of the most well - document re - entries of any space outfit is that of the distance bottom ATV Jules Verne , which was flown by the European Space Agency on a missionary work to resupply the International Space Station in March 2008 . As it came hurtling back to Earth in September of that class , it give scientist an unbelievable chance to watch its re - entry and intermission - up as they fly in two planes alongside the spacecraft , documenting the consequence in stupefying particular .
But the power to get the space junk to accurately re - infix over Point Nemo is reliant on the space agency regard still having control over the satellite or spacecraft , something that is n’t always potential . When America ’s first blank station , Skylab , came hurtling back down to Earth in 1979 , the mostly uncontrolled re - entry escort the huge patch of equipment comecrashing down over the Australian outback , with monumental glob touching down not far from the town of Esperance .
Now , as the China ’s first space post take off to suffer celestial orbit , it seems thata similar fate awaits Tiangong-1since middleman with it has been now been lost . The exact position of where Tiangong-1 will chance upon will not be known until a few hours before impingement , but it will be somewhere in the latitudes of Spain and Australia .
