Earlier this month’s the GeoEye-1, the world's highest-resolution commercial satellite sponsored by Google took its first picture. The GeoEye-1 weighs 4,300 pounds, definitely not a ‘point & shoot’ pocket camera. The camera is attached to a satellite, which orbits earth at 4.5 miles per second. The US government owns the satellite and images the camera takes are sold to Google who will use them for its mapping service. They have an exclusive contract so they will be the only online mapping service to have these high-resolution images.

Via Wired