This section provides insight into the blocks of the blockchain: who created them and what is inside of them.
Explorer is divided into the following sub-sections:
Chain Info
Block Details
Forks
Node Info
Chain Info
Here you can see:
the target block time and the amount of time elapsed since the last block was created.
Time to next epoch, number of blocks produced, and number of blocks finalised.
the blocks created and the validator that created them
events that have taken place on the blockchain
You can delve into the details of the block by either clicking the block number (found in recent blocks) or event reference (found in recent events)
This opens the Block Details page that we discuss below.
Block Details
We are provided with insights on the following (the areas are colour-coded):
(Yellow)
We see the number of funds that were transferred in the block, the amount of weight consumed by the block relative to its maximum allowed weight and the number of event that fired within this block.
(Purple)
We see the validator who produced the block, the hash of the block, the hash of the block that preceded this block (known as the parent), the hash of the extrinsics and hash of the state.
(Green)
We see the timestamp, the weight and details of any extrinsics that were fired in this time interval of the blockchain.
(Red)
We see the events that were fired.
(Blue)
We see the logs that were created.
Forks
Here we can see what forks have taken place on the network. Initially, it may appear counter-intuitive to see a substrate blockchain undergoing forks but the reason for this is related to how Babe consensus functions. Regularly nodes will create valid blocks at the same time and the consensus mechanism will have to choose what block to add to the chain and what block to discard.
Node Info
The page shows information about nodes of the network from the perspective of the node you are connected to while using PolkadotJS Apps.
You will see the other nodes listed. Data is refreshed every 10 seconds and shows the networks agreed upon best hash and the best hash that has been produced by the node you are connected to.