Cemeteries, in addition to being places where people are buried with dignity, also function as a way to prevent the process of decomposition of bodies from contaminating groundwater. When it comes to space junk, the logic is the same.
What you don't know is that the NASA has its own cemetery. Hidden away in a far and remote area of Earth, thousands of kilometers away from civilization, located between Oceania, on the east coast of New Zealand, Antarctica and South America, is the cemetery from NASA.
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Point Nemo
Point Nemo is a place known by members of space agencies, especially NASA, for being the area where agencies have deposited space junk since 1971. The choice of this location, which is chosen by a large part of the population of planet Earth, with the exception of the people on board the Station International Space Station (ISS), was considered a remote area and safe enough to deposit the waste space.
Space junk is deposited in a controlled manner at Point Nemo and is launched thousands of kilometers from the thermosphere to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. According to astronomer Sara Webb, much space junk burns up when it re-enters Earth. However, the burning of the waste depends on the speed and the material from which the waste is made.
The choice of Point Nemo to be NASA's space garbage cemetery is due to the fact that it is necessary, at times, to let the garbage land far enough away from humans. For astronomers, 2,800 kilometers is a safe enough distance.
Waste control can be done remotely
Space junk is different from that produced in homes or factories. Thus, many of them have fuel and can be monitored, which makes it easier to choose where the space junk should be deposited. For now, according to astronomers, the site works well and has a low environmental impact, especially as it is an area with little underwater life. The idea is that Point Nemo will be deactivated in 2030. But until then, only 260 objects characterized as space junk were deposited in the region.
