Olympics: Host Cities Of Current, Past Games Shine In NASA PHOTOS

From Athens in 1896 to London this year, the summer Olympic games have been held in 22 cities around the world. The cities are all different, of course, but all look dazzling in a new set of satellite photos released by NASA.

"We have a fleet of earth observing satellites capturing images every day," Rebecca Roth, image coordinator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, told The Huffington Post in an email. "This was a great way to share some of those great views with the public."

The earliest image of the set shows Atlanta on May 11, 1997. The most recent, showing London, was taken on March 27, 2012. In some of the photos, international borders are visible as well as dazzling lights and landscapes.

The Olympic motto is "citius, altius, fortius," Latin for "faster, higher, stronger"... "we especially like the 'higher' part," Roth said.