BBC News Online: Sci/Tech

Where once the towers stood

Taken on Saturday - South is top

For most of last week, lower Manhattan island was shrouded in dust and smoke - some fires still burn - and getting a clear picture from space showing what had happened to the famous twin towers was not possible.

But at the weekend, the atmosphere above "ground zero" cleared sufficiently for Space Imaging's Ikonos satellite to take the remarkable image at the top of this page.

The one-metre resolution image was collected at 1154 EDT on Saturday, 15 September. The many emergency and rescue vehicles in the streets in the vicinity of the disaster are clearly visible.

The picture was taken looking slightly to the south. Compare it with the "before" image - taken looking to the north - by Ikonos on 30 June, 2000. Note the position of the blue domes on the buildings just to the west of where the towers once stood.

Ikonos is the world's first high-resolution commercial Earth imaging satellite. It travels 680 kilometres (420 miles) above the Earth's surface at a speed of 28,000 kilometres per hour (17,500 mph).

(All images courtesy of Spaceimaging.com)