Doomed Satellite Sends Back Spectacular Images.

A doomed Japanese satellite captured the first ever images of one of the largest weather systems in the universe before it spun itself to pieces.

A software glitch caused the X-ray satellite Hitomi to lose contact with ground crews just six weeks after its launch in February.

Rescue attempts were later abandoned, but before it died it managed to map a clump of galaxies known as the Perseus cluster.

Superheated gas - or plasma - fills the spaces between galaxies within a cluster, but it is usually difficult to detect.

But because the Hitomi satellite was sensitive to X-ray wavelengths, it managed to pick up the cluster's faint glow.

"We're not just looking at some little fluffy atmosphere," said Andrew Fabian from the Hitomi team, "There's nothing like it."

The pictures show a galactic tug-of-war taking place, with the hot gas blasted out by a supermassive black hole - which escapes the gravitational pull of stars within the cluster.

The pictures show large gusts of plasma, some larger than our Milky Way, which are travelling almost at the speed of light.

The Hitomi cost £187m to build and was supposed to spend three years examining the skies.

It is thought that the onboard star tracker system may have malfunctioned, causing it to become disorientated.

One astrophysicist said the entire Hitomi mission felt like an emotional rollercoaster.

Eugene Churazov said: "I went through these three emotional stages.

"One was the excitement in February from the successful launch ... then in late March the shock from the loss of the spacecraft.

"And today, another wave of excitement from reading the paper."