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The development of a petrol price war owes much to the structure of petrol retailing and in particular to the spatial pattern of retail outlets. Local neighbourhood, retailer competition, stimulated by consumer price sensitivity with respect to clusters of service stations, influences not only the spatial pattern of prices but may also influence the range in prices during a price war, at least at the scale of an individual city.
The Infra-Red Astronomy Satellite has produced evidence of the early stages of planet formation around a star. It is not the only evidence of solar systems other than our own.
