Live globe

The constellation, computed in your browser

Every Starlink satellite in the orbit snapshot, at its SGP4-predicted position for the time shown, computed on your device (satellite.js) from public CelesTrak orbital elements. These are predictions, not tracking data. Which parts are real

Loading the orbit snapshot and starting SGP4…

Loading the orbit snapshot…

What the globe draws

Label: REAL SGP4 on REAL elements
Satellite positions. SGP4 (satellite.js 7.1.0) run in your browser on the public orbital elements, for the simulated time shown above the globe: real physics computed by real code from real data, but a prediction, not tracking data. Drawn true to scale: one unit is the Earth's equatorial radius, 6,378.137 km.
Label: REAL SGP4 samples
Orbit ring of a selected satellite. When you select a satellite, the globe draws one orbital period of its SGP4 positions (180 samples, centred on the simulated time). The straight segments between samples are a drawing aid.
Label: REAL
Orbital elements. The CelesTrak SupGP snapshot described below.
Label: DERIVED
Colour groups. Our grouping by inclination and mean altitude. It is not SpaceX's list of shells.
Label: DERIVED
Earth rotation, day and night. The Earth is turned by Greenwich mean sidereal time; the Sun direction comes from the Astronomical Almanac's low-precision formulas.
Label: REAL
Earth imagery. NASA Blue Marble (October 2004) and Black Marble (2016) composites. They are not live images. The thin blue edge on the sunlit limb is a drawing cue, not data. Image credits
Label: REAL
Reference markers. Greenwich, Chennai, New York and Sydney, placed from their latitude and longitude, so the map's orientation can be checked by eye.
Label: MODELLED
Laser links. Not drawn on the globe. Our Grid-4 model of them is used by the route planner, labelled as our model.
Label: UNKNOWN
Starlink's own routing. Not public, so not shown. Starlink does not use T-CRH.

Orbit snapshot

REAL public orbital elements

Source: CelesTrak SupGP Query URL: https://celestrak.org/NORAD/elements/supplemental/sup-gp.php?FILE=starlink&FORMAT=json
Element sets: 11,150 of 11,151 downloaded; 1 excluded (1 epoch older than 3 days)
Element epochs: 2026-10-18 14:31 UTC to 2026-10-19 19:46 UTC median 2026-10-19 17:28 UTC
Downloaded: 2026-10-19 21:13:28 UTC
Snapshot: 20261019T2113Z-supgp

What you are looking at

Which parts are real

Label: REAL: Orbital elements. CelesTrak's supplemental GP (SupGP) elements for Starlink, which CelesTrak derives from ephemerides published by SpaceX. Element sets whose epoch was more than three days old at download time are left out.
Label: REAL: Satellite positions. Computed from those elements with SGP4 for the time shown on the globe (the current time, unless you change it): real physics computed by real code from the real elements. They are predictions, not tracking data: SGP4 is an approximation, and its error grows with the time since each element set's epoch.
Label: DERIVED: Colour groups. Our grouping of the satellites by inclination and mean altitude. It is not SpaceX's list of shells.
Label: MODELLED: Inter-satellite laser links. Not drawn on this globe. Which satellites are linked is not public; the route planner uses our Grid-4 model of them, labelled MODELLED.
Label: UNKNOWN: Starlink's real routing. Not public, so we do not show or claim it. Starlink does not use T-CRH.

Routes

No links or routes are drawn on this globe. The route planner computes routes between two cities with our code over a MODELLED laser-link topology, on the same orbit snapshot; they are never taken from Starlink. The header format a route is written into is described on the protocol page, and the assumptions behind the link model on the methodology page.