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Urban beauties: Incredible view of cities from space

The European Space Agency’s Envistat and other satellites have captured manmade features from above.
10.00am, 30 Nov 2013
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IN THE PAST, we’ve posted some incredible views of Earth’s most breathtaking natural features from the European Space Agency (ESA), which has been observing the Earth with satellites for decades.

It turns out that natural features aren’t the only thing that the ESA has seen from space — they’ve turned their lenses on some of Earth’s most iconic cities as well.

The ESA has launched some of the most advanced Earth-observation satellites ever, including the Envistat, which circled the Earth from 2002 until 2012.

Every week, the ESA releases a new image — plucked from the huge pool of Envistat and other satellite images — on their website.

Urban beauties: Incredible view of cities from space
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  • Rotterdam, the Netherlands

    Source: Envistat/ESA

  • Dubai, UAE

    Source: French Pleiades satellite/ESA

  • Manhattan, nearly whited out by light pollution

    Source: Envistat/ESA

  • San Francisco bay

    Source: Landsat-7/ESA

  • Athens, Greece (with Acropolis at centre)

    Source: ESA

  • Mumbai, India

    Source: Proba-1/ESA

  • Barcelona, Spain

    Source: ALOS satellite/ESA

  • Yakutsk, Russia

    Source: ALOS/ESA

  • Brussels, Belgium

    Source: Spot-5/ESA

  • Al Jawf oasis, Libya

    You're wondering what the large circles are? They are irrigated agricultural plots and are circles because of a central pivot irrigation system that uses a rotating water pipe at the centre of each plot.Source: ALOS/ESA

  • Rome, Italy

    Source: Spot-5/ESA

  • Venice, Italy

    Source: Ikonos-2/ESA

- Harrison Jacobs

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