Where is everything?

November 3, 2005 4:44 PM

Live tracking Thusday: Where are the interstellar probes? (and the objects in orbit?) Where is the lightning in Europe? Where is the fleet? Where is my flight? Where is tomorrow now? Where is your God now? Where is the magnetic north pole today? [J-track prev.]
posted by blahblahblah (19 comments total)

The objects in orbit one is really neat. I like how there's an actual ring around the Earth.
posted by brundlefly at 4:57 PM on November 3, 2005

The "interstellar probes" one makes me inexplicably cheerful....maybe it's knowing that they could actually outlast our tenure on this planet....
posted by alumshubby at 5:08 PM on November 3, 2005

Same here. But it makes me sad at the same time. Those poor little buggers are out there by their lonesome and it might be millions of years before they run into anybody else. They'll be really good at Solitaire by then.
posted by brundlefly at 5:10 PM on November 3, 2005

I second the groovy-ness of the orbits link.
posted by Freen at 5:15 PM on November 3, 2005

Very nice!
posted by Gyan at 5:24 PM on November 3, 2005

At one point, globalsecurity.org tracked the deployment of U.S. forces worldwide , but sadly it seems they have stopped updating it.
posted by jgee at 5:26 PM on November 3, 2005

I love the "where is tomorrow", where you can find out exactly at what time it will become tomorrow where you live.

I'm betting on midnight, but maybe it's just me.
posted by blue_beetle at 5:41 PM on November 3, 2005

Funny, for some reason I can't find the Moon on that objects in orbit applet.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:16 PM on November 3, 2005

And I wanted to apologize for the Where is your God now link -- it was either that or Where's Waldo, and apparently there are no live Waldo tracking sites. Go figure.
posted by blahblahblah at 8:14 PM on November 3, 2005

If only one could track the F Train for its arrival, while waiting at West 4th St. on a Saturday night at about 1:15am...
posted by ParisParamus at 8:25 PM on November 3, 2005

I haven't looked at the orbit tracking one just yet, but if it is what I think it is then the moon won't show up for this reason. The program shows orbits from ground level out to Geosynchronous which is about 22000 mi. Compare that to the Moon's orbit of ~250,000 mi. The scale is a bit different. I believe the ring people refer to is the ring of geosynchronous orbits, since for them to remain over the same part of ground, they must be at the equator.
posted by Phantomx at 9:52 PM on November 3, 2005

But where has the time gone?
posted by TwelveTwo at 10:16 PM on November 3, 2005

Awesome post!

Normally I hate multi-link FPPs (oh goody, the top ten google results telling me the exact same thing) but this rocks.

The satellite tracker is excellent: you can change the update rate and speed to see them whizzing around.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 10:18 PM on November 3, 2005

How about where all the flights are?
posted by neurodoc at 10:27 PM on November 3, 2005

Where are the s-trains of the Danish capital Copenhagen: http://byenspuls.dsb.dk/byens_puls/ByensPuls.html
posted by FidelDonson at 12:17 AM on November 4, 2005

How about the next San Francisco Municipal Railway bus or train?
posted by gohlkus at 2:21 AM on November 4, 2005

neurodoc, brilliant link, you should make it a FPP at some point. This (quicktime) animation of a day's flights is strangely beautiful, with planes streaming in all directions.
posted by blahblahblah at 5:49 AM on November 4, 2005

Where is your God now?

Please. The correct quote is "Where's your messiah now?" (I went to Google to make sure of the reference and this was the first hit that came up.)
posted by soyjoy at 8:14 AM on November 4, 2005

i use the j-track-3d a lot to find iridium satellite positions. the source code is supposed available through a rather arcane nasa application process. arcance enough to dissuade me from applying, anyway, so that i might embed the applet in another application.
posted by 3.2.3 at 1:46 PM on November 4, 2005