December 15, 2006

Mark Brender, of GeoEye, which specializes in the high-resolution satellite imagery, sent me this little-known image, taken on Septmeber 12, 2001, by the company's IKONOS spacecraft. The satellite was orbiting 423 miles above the planet, sweeping across the Eastern seaboard at 17,000 miles an hour.

PHOTO COURTESY OF GEOEYE

A subsidiary of his firm, Space Imaging, is mentioned in the book, in describing how the Internet proved unmatched as a receptacle for posting and archiving stores of 9/11-related information, much of it visual. "Space Imaging company, for instance, which maintains what it calls the only 'high-resolution commercial imaging satellites...in orbit on that fateful day,' created a month-by-month photochronology of the Pentagon and Ground Zero sites as viewed from beyond our atmosphere."