The most remote place in the ocean is closer to space than to land.

Point Nemo, in the South Pacific, is the point in the ocean farthest from any land — about 2,688 km from the nearest coastlines in every direction. When the International Space Station passes overhead at roughly 400 km altitude, the astronauts aboard are, quite literally, the nearest people to anyone stranded there.

The spot is so remote and rarely trafficked by ships that space agencies use the surrounding waters as a “spacecraft cemetery,” deliberately splashing down decommissioned satellites and station modules there.