The first piece of the International Space Station (ISS) went into space in 1998. The ISS has worked for over 20 years. More than 200 astronauts from 19 countries have worked there and done research there. It is old now. Around the year 2031, it will fall to Earth and "sleep" forever.
The place foritto "sleep" is Point Nemo (尼莫点). It is about halfway between New Zealand and Chile, in the southern Pacific Ocean. It is named after Captain Nemo from Jules Verne's novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. "Nemo" also means "no one" in Latin (拉丁语). It is the furthest place from land. The closest humans to Point Nemo are often astronauts in space. There aren't many animals either, because the water has poor nutrients (营养物). This makes it safe to drop old spacecraft (航天器) there.
Since 1971, the United States, Russia, Japan and European countries have been using Point Nemo for dropping their old spacecraft. More than 263 pieces of space junk are there now. People call it the "space graveyard (墓地)".
