Methodology and Data Sources

Where every GodsView layer comes from, how fresh it is, and what it cannot tell you.

Updated October 20, 2026

GodsView AI does not operate its own sensors. Every layer on the map comes from a public agency, a research project or a community network, and GodsView fetches, caches and displays that data. This page lists the main providers behind each layer group, how often GodsView refreshes them, and the limits you should keep in mind before relying on any of it.

Refresh times below are how often GodsView asks the provider for new data. The data itself can be older, because each provider has its own collection and processing delay. Layers marked Pro are part of GodsView Pro; everything else is on the free plan.

Aircraft and aviation

OpenSky's public API serves anonymous state vectors at 10-second time resolution, so an aircraft on screen is at best a few seconds behind reality, and more when a feed is slow. In the United States, owners can ask the FAA to limit public display of their aircraft through the LADD program, and some aircraft only broadcast a position intermittently.

Ships and transport

AIS is broadcast by the vessel itself. A ship that switches its transponder off, or reports a wrong position, appears that way on the map. The aisstream.io documentation states the service has no uptime guarantee, so short gaps in the ship layer are expected.

Earth hazards and environment

FIRMS detections mark the center of a pixel about 375 m (VIIRS) or 1 km (MODIS) across, not the exact fire. NASA's near-real-time data arrives within about 3 hours of an overpass, and each sensor sees a given place only a few times a day, so a new fire can be missing for hours. Some detections are gas flares or volcanic heat.

Weather

For warnings and evacuation decisions, always follow your national weather service and local authorities.

Space

A satellite dot is computed, not observed: GodsView propagates published orbital elements to the current time. Maneuvers after the last element set will not show until new elements arrive.

Infrastructure, signals and news

How the Ops Center scores and merges incidents

The Ops Center turns reports from agencies, sensors, news and social posts into incidents. Sources include USGS M4.5+ earthquakes, GDACS, NASA EONET, NWS, WHO Disease Outbreak News, IODA, Copernicus EMS, the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, GDELT, a news wire of 50+ outlets, OSINT social posts, emergency squawks from military ADS-B data, and US State Department travel advisories.

Reports are merged into one incident when they share an identifier (a storm name, CVE or GDACS event id), when agency or sensor reports of the same hazard fall close together in space and time, or when news headlines share enough words, sit in the same country and arrive within 36 hours.

Each report is scored from its source's own measure, such as magnitude, GDACS alert level, NWS severity or squawk code; headlines are scored from keywords. The incident takes its highest report score and gains up to 15 points when independent sources agree. Scores of 80 or more are critical, 60 or more high, 40 or more medium, and anything lower low. Confidence is labeled Confirmed (an agency or sensor report), Corroborated (two or more independent outlets), Reported (one outlet) or Unverified (social posts only, capped at a score of 45). The Ops Center guide explains this in detail.

What "live" means on GodsView

"Live" means GodsView shows the most recent data the provider has published, refreshed on the schedule above. It does not mean zero delay. In practice:

• Aircraft and ships are seconds to a minute behind.
• Earthquakes usually appear within minutes, then get revised.
• Satellite fire detections can be hours behind the fire itself.
• Satellite positions are calculated predictions, not observations.
• Travel advisories and reference layers change rarely.

When a feed fails, the Ops Center keeps the last good data from that source and marks it as stale in the Monitor panel.

Coverage gaps to keep in mind

• ADS-B depends on volunteer receivers, so coverage is thin over oceans, deserts, polar regions and some conflict zones.
• Terrestrial AIS loses ships beyond the range of shore receivers.
• FIRMS sees each place only during satellite overpasses, and clouds or smoke can hide fires.
• Weather alerts from NWS cover only the United States.
• News and social coverage follows where reporters and posters are, not where events are.

A missing aircraft, ship or fire on the map is weak evidence that nothing is there. The guide on verifying breaking news with live maps covers how to work with these gaps.

Corrections policy

If you find an error in a layer description, an article or this page, contact us through the contact options on the site. We check the claim against the provider, fix it, and change the article's updated date. Every blog article shows its published and updated dates, so you can see when it last changed.

Editorial policy for the blog

Articles on the GodsView blog are written by Jijo John, Founder, and follow these rules:

• Claims about GodsView come from how the product works at the time of writing.
• Facts about data providers are checked against the provider's own documentation and linked.
• Comparisons with other tools carry the date their facts were checked, and prices are stated "as of" a month.
• There are no paid placements: no company pays to be included, ranked or described in an article.
• Legal and safety topics are informational, and point to official agencies and regulators.