MAPS

24 hours of global air traffic in 4 seconds May 18, 2016 On an average day, there are roughly 90,000 commercial flights around the world. This stunning animated map displays them all in 4 seconds. Every plane flight in the world over 24 hours Credit: Zurich School of Applied SciencesYoutube version / animated gif This incredible map was made way back in 2008 by Dr. Karl Rege of the Zurich School of Applied Sciences. Using arrival and departure data from the website FlightStats, he and his team simulated the flight path of every commercial flight over a 24 hour period and plotted them all in the map as tiny yellow dots. The fact that they made the map back in 2008, when web mapping was still in its infancy, makes it all the more impressive. It also explains why such an impressive graphic never made the rounds on social media (in 2008, America’s #1 social network was still Myspace). You can view the original version of the map, which is quite a bit slower than the one above, on Youtube. The video file is also available for download on the University’s website. If you’d like to see some other work by the team, check out their “Blue Marble” video series, which is also very well done.  The videos show a time lapse of the world’s changing coastlines, starting 21,000 years ago at the peak of the last ice age and ending 1,000 years in the future. H/T Wired  If you liked this map, sign up to be notified of new Metrocosm posts Your World Map is Hiding Something You may be aware that the Mercator projection, the world map we're all familiar with, distorts the size of some countries. It makes Greenland appear the same size as Africa, when in reality Greenland is 14x smaller. What's not so well known about Mercator is that parts of the world are missing. The map is always cropped on both ends. What the map looks like when you uncrop it is sure to surprise you. .

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