Invisible Atlas

Lighting the planet

Measured layers

What the close view draws11 of 11 layers

How to read this planet

The light. The bright side is where the Sun is shining right now, the dark side is night. The line between them moves as the Earth turns, exactly as it does outside your window.
The photograph. With "Earth today" on, the ground is NASA's satellite photograph of yesterday, real clouds and all. At night you see yesterday's real city lights from the same satellite. Press the satellite button on the right to switch it off and see the plain reference globe.
The green glow near the poles. That is where the northern or southern lights are likely right now, from NOAA's forecast. Kp in the bottom bar says how stormy the Sun's weather is: quiet up to 4, storms from 5.
The coloured dots. Every dot is a place where a phone running Invisible Atlas actually measured the invisible world. Blue: measured. Amber: measured in the last 7 days. Green: measured today. Violet: measured on many different layers. The number is how many small hexes are inside.
The beams. When a phone somewhere uploads a measurement, a beam rises from that region for a moment. It is real activity, blurred to the region so nobody's exact position is shown.
Play. Replays how the network grew, day by day, from the first measurement. Turn the sound on and every new hex is a note.
The pin with a number. What is happening on Earth right now according to NASA: storms, fires, volcanoes, ice. Tap one and you fly there.
Live sky. Planes broadcasting their position, satellites on their real orbits, and earthquakes of the last day. Tap anything for a plain explanation.
The Moon. Press the moon button and the camera turns to where the real Moon is right now, in its real phase.
The target button. Global view. After it, the planet turns by itself at its true speed, one turn a day, until you touch it.

Everything here is either measured by a phone, photographed by a satellite, computed from published orbits, or recorded by NASA, NOAA or the USGS. Nothing is invented to look nice.

Network footprint

Radio context

Spectrum instruments

Physical fields

Earth today, NASA (2026-10-01)

Live sky, radio and rock

The constellation you see from space shows every measured hex, anchored on the strongest real cell of each group. Layer choices apply to the close view columns and to hex details.

Earth events, NASA EONET

What is happening on EarthLoading

What the daily photograph can show

Hurricanes and typhoons. The satellite passes every point on Earth once a day. A hurricane is hundreds of kilometres wide, so it shows as the spiral it is, eye included, on the day it happened.
Wildfire smoke and dust storms. Smoke plumes stretch for hundreds of kilometres and show as brown streaks. Saharan dust crossing the Atlantic is visible the same way. The Dust and smoke layer measures it.
Volcanic eruptions. The ash plume, and often the grey fallout on the ground the next day.
Floods. A flooded river valley turns from green to brown and stays that way for days.
Snow cover and sea ice. Arrivals and retreats, day by day. Both have their own layer.
At night. A city blackout after a storm shows as a dark hole where lights used to be. Wildfires show as bright points. A strong aurora shows as a real arc across the north.

Limits, honestly: each pixel is 250 metres and the satellite crosses each place once a day around 13:30 local time, so a tornado funnel or anything that starts and ends between passes is not there, and clouds can hide the ground. The events below are not detected by Invisible Atlas: they are NASA's own curated records from NOAA, the JTWC, the USGS, the Smithsonian and national agencies. Tap one and the planet flies there, over that day's photograph.

Earth today: NASA GIBS, VIIRS Suomi NPP true colour by day and Day/Night Band lights by night (photographed 2026-10-01) · Space weather: NOAA SWPC Kp index and OVATION aurora model · Events: NASA EONET · Aircraft: adsb.lol (ODbL) · Satellites: CelesTrak, Dr. T.S. Kelso · Earthquakes: USGS · Sky layers inspired by God's Eye View (MIT, Bilawal Sidhu) · Snow, sea ice, aerosol, sea temperature: NASA GIBS · Base: NASA Blue Marble · Night lights: NASA Black Marble 2016 · Streets: OpenStreetMap contributors · Borders: Natural Earth · Sunlight computed for the current time · Moon: NASA LRO colour map, real position and phase, drawn 3x its apparent size