First play the video. Go on, you won’t believe what the yellow lights are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s63L4RCBBgM
Now take a guess what the yellow lights were. Nope they are not bugs, locusts or aliens attacking the planet.
What you were watching is an amazing video of air traffic around the world captured for a period of 24 hours, from satellite and compressed into a one minute video. The yellow dots are actually airplanes in the sky flying from one place to another during the 24 hours period. If you watched the whole video then you saw the sun rise and set, from East to west, as the Earth revolves and spins on its axis.
Also, you must have seen the flow of air crafts leaving the North American continent and traveling at night to arrive in the UK in the morning. Then you will see the flow changing, leaving the UK in the morning and flying to the American continent during the day. Did you notice the USA and Europe covered completely with the yellow dots? Europe alone has 30,000 flights that fly within the continent every day. Similarly did you observe the air traffic in others parts of the world?
Most people aren’t aware of the work that goes into managing these flights and keeping air crafts and people safe through our skies. This visualization is created to highlight the complexity of the work undertaken by air traffic controllers. Hats off to engineering…..!
Author: Tora Sen
Feature Image and Video: Courtesy School of Engineering, Zurich
