With the world population topping eight billion for the first time, "Santa is flying faster than ever; we estimate he's traveling over Mach 7 this year" — seven times the speed of sound, more than a mile per second — "to hit all those datapoints around the world in one night," says Adam Gorski, aerospace engineer for Exton, Pennsylvania-based Ansys Government Initiatives.
AGI, a flight-simulation subsidiary of Ansys Inc., is one of two Philadelphia-area tech companies that cooperate to track Santa Claus' Christmas Eve flights in real time, using data collected by NORAD, the U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command.
NORAD collects data from transmitters in many places, including a convenient Santa Claus sled beacon — "Rudolph's red nose," Gorski added.
