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Venice, Italy, seen from space by the Ikonos satellite. North is at top. The Grand Canal (Canal Grande) winds through the city from upper left to the Canale Della Giudecca at lower right. Just to the east of this junction is St Mark's Square (Piazza St Marco). On this square are the Campanile, a tower, St Mark's Basilica (at the eastern end of the square) and the Doge's Palace (to the south of the basilica). 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)