PLANETHEARTBEAT / V3.6.2 ×
Feel the pulse of our planet. PlanetHeartbeat is an experimental public-interest geospatial experience. It connects conceptually to Microport Map and a separate Drone Airport project.
Explore: Use world-region shortcuts, local event-name search and magnitude filters. These controls operate on events returned by USGS and do not submit your search to another service.
Share: Public USGS and NASA source events have shareable links; the link contains a public event ID, not personal data.
NASA EONET: Curated open natural-event metadata (for example wildfires, storms and volcanoes). We map only events that contain valid Point coordinates. An open event does not necessarily mean an ongoing emergency, and positions and timestamps can be delayed. These data are not warnings.
Seismic timeline: This histogram groups the currently downloaded USGS earthquake events into 12 rolling two-hour bins for 24-hour mode or 7 rolling 24-hour bins for the week mode. Bars are interactive and filter the globe, metrics, activity feed and CSV export. Counts are based on loaded events and selected magnitude/location filters, not earthquake probabilities or forecasts.
Space weather: NOAA SWPC publishes planetary Kp observations in approximately 3-hour intervals. Kp measures global geomagnetic disturbance, not conditions at a specific address. Kp 5+ indicates a geomagnetic storm, but this visualization is not a NOAA warning service. Data older than 12 hours are marked stale, and failed connections are never displayed as zero.
Seismic proximity: Select a city to see the nearest earthquake currently returned by the selected official USGS M4.5+ 24-hour or 7-day feed. Distances are great-circle estimates from published epicenter coordinates to approximate city centers, calculated locally. It is not a measure of safety or predictive risk, and an unavailable source is not treated as zero activity.
Earthquake Lab: Research filters use only the already downloaded USGS M4.5+ records. Depth classes are shallow (<70 km), intermediate (70–300 km), and deep (>300 km). Hemispheres and equatorial latitudes are mathematical coordinate regions, not political boundaries. Distance filters are great-circle estimates from selected city centers. Filtering changes the map markers, timeline, details, exports and activity list; none are seismic forecasts. GeoJSON and JSON exports include source attribution and filter information.
Source transparency: The source status panel shows the most recent successful connection time and number of events retrieved directly in your browser. An unavailable feed is not counted as zero events, and being connected does not guarantee that individual events are up to the minute. The Refresh Both button makes fresh API requests.
Focus View: Expand the globe to the full page content width, hiding sidebars temporarily. Press Escape or the button again to return to the normal layout. This does not request device fullscreen permissions.
USGS time periods and export: Switch between the official one-day and one-week M4.5+ earthquake GeoJSON feeds. CSV export downloads the currently filtered earthquakes with magnitude, depth, latitude/longitude, event UTC time and the USGS source link. Export uses public event data only, processed in the browser. A feed outage will not silently turn an event count into zero.
Planet Field Guide: Fifty science and data-literacy explainers are accessible at /field-guide.html. This is a static educational source-linked reference with optional on-page search and no automatic external data or media requests. It is not an emergency or scientific certification.
Earth Cameras (planned): A link-only camera source directory is available at /cameras.html. PlanetHeartbeat does not embed, rebroadcast, record, proxy, automatically refresh or track webcam content. Independent providers control availability and licensing. A camera preview or stream will be added only with appropriate permissions and explicit user initiation, after performance testing.
Regional Pulse: Fifty descriptive USGS earthquake calculations: ten mathematical geographic scopes times five measures, including event counts, strongest and mean magnitude, median reported depth, and events during the most recent six hours. These calculations use the currently selected M4.5+ 24-hour/7-day feed and the chosen city for great-circle distance scopes. They do not predict events or represent scientifically determined hazard regions. Browser-only CSV and JSON exports include source attribution.
System Health: Run 50 on-device diagnostics grouped into globe rendering, public source feeds, curated content, navigation and safety/data integrity. Individual checks report pass, warning or failure without silently treating an unavailable public feed as a successful zero. These tests require no new API or upload and do not certify security, accessibility, science or operational safety.
Planet Academy: 50 educational multiple-choice questions in five science themes. Answers are checked in-browser and educational explanations refer to scientific source providers. This is not a forecast, alert, formal scientific certification or travel guidance. No account, cookie or tracking is used.
Earth Journeys: Ten original five-stop educational itineraries guide users through 50 distinct, pre-existing geographic locations. These are thematic sequences for globe exploration, not navigable routes or driving directions. Complete each stop manually, track progress only in memory in this tab, export a tour list as CSV, or share the journey ID and stop index. No GPS or new mapping API is used.
Earth Discovery: A new optional list of 40 static geographic points (volcanoes, mountains, water systems, desert and ecosystem reference areas, poles). Approximate coordinates are illustrative education references and are not observations, alerts, hazards, routes or verified site boundaries. Their marker is shown only when one location is selected; they do not create 40 extra map dots. Filter by region, feature and name, explore or download the catalog.
World Atlas: Adds 50 approximate city-center reference locations to the original ten, spanning five world regions. Search by city or country, select a region, use next/previous/surprise navigation, and export the city catalog as CSV. IANA timezone names are interpreted by the browser to show local civil time with daylight-saving behavior. These locations are reference points, not user geolocation or verified operational facilities.
City Spotlight: Jump to a selection of world cities and see accurate civil clock time for their official IANA time zones. Coordinates are approximate city centers, not GPS tracking, and the city clock runs locally in your browser without location permissions.
Day and night model: Globe sunlight direction is estimated from your device UTC clock using NOAA fractional-year solar declination and equation-of-time formulas. This is an approximate visual model, not a scientific illumination product. Toggle it off to use the original studio-style lighting.
Earthquake depths: USGS GeoJSON has longitude, latitude, and depth in kilometers. The visualization classifies depths as shallow (under 70 km), intermediate (70–300 km) and deep (over 300 km), following USGS conventions. Data may be updated or revised by the source.
Source data: Recent magnitude 4.5+ earthquakes from the USGS one-day GeoJSON feed, refreshed every 10 minutes and on request. The site reports a source outage rather than inventing events.
Concept data: Example satellites, charging sites, and drone nodes are not verified, live or operational. Markers are not intended for aviation, navigation or emergency decisions.
Privacy and licensing: No accounts, analytics or API keys collected by this prototype; the browser accesses public CDNs, textures and USGS. Browser requests also reach the NASA EONET public API. Third-party assets and planned operational datasets need separate license checks.
Before grant applications: Finish technical accessibility, security, privacy, data licensing and source-provenance reviews against each funding call.
UNDERSTOOD 