A shiny new ballistic-missile submarine docked at a naval base in China has been spied publicly for the first time using Google Earth.

The new class of nuclear sub, called the Jin-class, had been rumoured to exist for some time, but the image recently uploaded to Google Earth is the first public glimpse of the vessel.

It is unknown how many Jin-class submarines China intends to build. An ONI report from 2006 estimated they would need five in order to set up a permanent presence in the oceans.