The short animation depicts 24 hours of flight data extracted from one period in July, 2013. Planes launch over the Atlantic from North America like rockets spewing blue fire; they eventually join a scrambling hive of activity swirling over Europe's various airports. Glowing nodules depict especially active hubs near London – like Heathrow, the busiest international airport on the Continent, and Gatwick, said to be the most efficient single-runway airport in existence.

Just how many flights are typically whizzing over Europe? Including business aviation and all-cargo journeys, it's about 26,000 flights a day by 2010 calculations, according to EUROCONTROL. In the U.K., a big chunk of this volume is handled by the air traffic-control company NATS, which made this visualization. The workers at NATS typically handle more than 6,000 flights a day.