Data sources behind Live Earth

Nothing on the globe is simulated. Every marker comes from one of the public feeds below, refreshed at the interval listed. Where a feed only covers part of the world, that limit is stated instead of filled in with guesses. Two of these feeds have pages of their own: the satellite tracker for live orbits and pass times, and the launch log for missions, launch dates and status.

Live feeds in use

Aircraft

ADSB.lol

Community ADS-B receivers. Dense over Europe and North America, sparse over oceans and remote regions.

Refresh
Every 10 seconds around the current camera position
Licence
Open community feed, ODbL

Satellites

CelesTrak GP element sets

Publicly catalogued objects: space stations, weather, navigation, Starlink, OneWeb and Iridium groups. Positions are propagated locally with SGP4.

Refresh
Element sets cached per session, positions recomputed every frame
Licence
Free for non-commercial use, credit CelesTrak

Events in the news

NASA EONET (Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker)

Wildfires, severe storms, volcanoes, floods, dust and icebergs currently open worldwide. Each event links to the agency report behind it.

Refresh
Every 10 minutes
Licence
NASA public domain, credit requested

Road incidents

DriveBC Open511

British Columbia, Canada only.

Refresh
Every 3 minutes
Licence
Open Government Licence, British Columbia

Road incidents and cameras

Fintraffic Digitraffic

Finland only.

Refresh
Incidents every 3 minutes, camera lists every 10 minutes
Licence
CC BY 4.0, Fintraffic

Public cameras

Caltrans CCTV inventory

California state highways only. Still images, no audio, no private cameras.

Refresh
Camera list every 10 minutes
Licence
US state public data

Cloud cover and precipitation

RainViewer weather maps

Global infrared cloud composite from GOES, Meteosat and Himawari, plus a radar and nowcast mosaic wherever national radar networks publish data.

Refresh
New frame roughly every 10 minutes
Licence
Free public tiles, credit RainViewer and the source agencies

Terrain elevation

Esri World Hillshade

Whole planet, shaded relief derived from USGS, NASA SRTM and partner elevation models.

Refresh
Static elevation model
Licence
Esri terms of use, attribution required

Globe imagery

NASA Visible Earth Blue Marble

Whole planet: day surface, night lights, cloud and relief maps.

Refresh
Static composite imagery
Licence
NASA public domain, credit requested

Aircraft

adsb.fi open data

Second community ADS-B network, used automatically when the first is rate-limited, widening aircraft coverage.

Refresh
Every 15 seconds
Licence
Open data, credit adsb.fi contributors

Aircraft

adsb.one open data

Third community ADS-B network, used automatically when the others are rate-limited.

Refresh
Every 15 seconds
Licence
Open data, credit adsb.one

Aircraft

Airplanes.live open data

Highly reliable community ADS-B network with global coverage.

Refresh
Every 15 seconds
Licence
Open data, credit Airplanes.live

Aircraft

TheAirTraffic open data

Additional community ADS-B network for redundancy.

Refresh
Every 15 seconds
Licence
Open data, credit TheAirTraffic

Public cameras

NZ Transport Agency traffic cameras

State highway cameras across New Zealand, refreshed stills with highway and direction.

Refresh
Every 10 minutes
Licence
CC BY 4.0, credit Waka Kotahi NZTA

Satellite tracker page

CelesTrak SATCAT

Catalogue records for tracked objects: launch date, launch site, operator, orbit shape and operational status.

Refresh
Hourly
Licence
Free for non-commercial use, credit CelesTrak

Launch log page

The Space Devs — Launch Library 2

Past and upcoming orbital launches worldwide, with mission description, target orbit, vehicle, pad and outcome.

Refresh
Every 30 minutes
Licence
Free public API, credit The Space Devs

Optional high-detail imagery

Esri World Imagery

Whole planet, loaded only when satellite tiles are switched on.

Refresh
On demand while zooming
Licence
Esri terms of use, attribution required

Events in the news

GDELT Project

Global media monitoring. Events, themes, locations and tone extracted from news worldwide in near real-time.

Refresh
Every 15 minutes
Licence
Open access, credit GDELT Project

Malware intel

abuse.ch URLhaus / ThreatFox

Geolocated malware distribution hosts and C2 servers worldwide, including malware family and URL count.

Refresh
Every 5 minutes
Licence
CC0

2D tactical map

CARTO Dark Matter Basemap

Global vector basemap tiles rendered by MapLibre GL JS.

Refresh
Tiles served on demand
Licence
BSD-3-Clause / CC BY 3.0 (OpenStreetMap data)

Volcanoes

Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program

Holocene volcanoes worldwide with eruption history and status.

Refresh
Updated periodically
Licence
Public access, credit Smithsonian Institution

Lightning

Blitzortung Community Network

Real-time lightning stroke detection from community receivers worldwide.

Refresh
Continuous
Licence
Community data, non-commercial use

Navigation routing

Valhalla (OpenStreetMap.de)

Global turn-by-turn routing with multiple costing models (auto, bicycle, pedestrian).

Refresh
On demand
Licence
MIT / ODbL (OpenStreetMap data)

Navigation routing (fallback)

OSRM Demo Server

Global driving-only routing fallback when Valhalla is unavailable.

Refresh
On demand
Licence
BSD-2-Clause / ODbL (OpenStreetMap data)

What is deliberately missing

Ships and AIS traffic

Every global live AIS feed found requires a paid key or forbids redistribution. The maritime layer shows limited coverage from public community feeds where available.

Live traffic flow everywhere

Only British Columbia and Finland publish keyless incident feeds. Traffic outside those two regions is genuinely absent, not hidden.

Back to the live globeCreated by Rishabh