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Athens, the capital city of Greece, seen by the Ikonos satellite. North is at top. The ancient Greek temple, the Parthenon, lies in the hilltop citadel of the Acropolis (pale brown, just left of centre). Launched in 1999, Ikonos was the first commercial satellite to collect data at one-metre resolution. The satellite, which orbits at an altitude of 681 kilometres, is owned by Space Imaging, Colorado, USA. Image size: 3x3km. (KEYSTONE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/SPACE IMAGING EUROPE)