Taking to the Skies with Wolfram|Alpha

At one time or another, we’ve all looked at a jet flying high overhead and thought “I wonder where they’re headed?” Actually answering that question probably seemed impossible before—but if you’re a user in the United States, Wolfram|Alpha can now help you answer that question and many more interesting queries about commercial and other flights.

Try the simple query “flights overhead” and you’ll get information on aircraft that should be visible to you, assuming a clear sky and unobstructed view. If you’re on a location-aware mobile device, the results should be based on your precise latitude and longitude—otherwise, Wolfram|Alpha will use the best available location information from your browser. Also note that hovering over an individual plane in the sky map will produce a tooltip with the airline and flight number:

Click on one of those flights (or type in an airline and flight number directly) and you’ll get a detailed snapshot of that flight’s current location, origin and destination, and other statistics about its journey. If you happen to be on that flight, and your aircraft has onboard internet, you can see at a glance where your plane is and which cities and other airports are nearby: