A satellite image of China's new nuclear ballistic missile submarine is available on the Google Earth Internet site.

A satellite image of China's new ballistic missile submarine. [ See DigitalGlobe images on Google. ] FAS.org



Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), spotted the images, photographed by the commercial Quickbird satellite in late 2006.

One photo is of what is apparently the new Type 094 Jin-class SSBN at the Xiaopingdao base near Dalian, FAS reported.