Costa Concordia: Satellite Images of Half-Submerged Cruise Ship Released [PHOTOS]

A new image of the capsized Costa Concordia ship near the west coast of Italy was captured from space.

Colorado-based commercial satellite operator Digital Globe, which uses a constellation of spacecraft to take photos of the Earth, has released the cruise ship photo which was taken Jan 17 - four days after the cruise ship ran aground near the west coast of Italy.

Satellite image of capsized Costa Condcordia ship captured from space

In the image, the ship which is half-submerged is visible from a layer of clouds. In the left hand side of the photo Italy's Isola Del Giglio can be seen and to the right, the Mediterranean Sea divides the island from the Italian mainland.

WorldView-1, one of company's three orbiting satellites, captured the photo from 308 miles above Earth's surface, Katie Nafius of DigitalGlobe told Huffington Post in an email.

The satellite was already in the neighborhood above the shipwreck and was specifically aimed to collect this target, said Nafius.

They've tried taking additional shots, but both images taken today from QuickBird and WorldView-2 were cloudy over the ship, Nafius told Huffington Post. Yesterday's shot was very lucky, there was a break in the clouds just over the ship!

Satellite image of capsized Costa Condcordia ship captured from space