Tenth Doctor's hand

Tenth Doctor's hand
Type:	The Doctor's severed hand
Place of origin:	The Doctor
Appearances:	DW: The Christmas Invasion, Utopia, The Sound of Drums, Last of the Time Lords, The Poison Sky, The Doctor's Daughter, The Stolen Earth, Journey's End TW: Day One, Random Shoes, End of Days

The Doctor's hand was the severed right hand of the Doctor which he lost shortly after he regenerated into his tenth incarnation.

During a sword fight with a Sycorax leader on the deck of their ship, the leader slashed his right hand off and it fell somewhere in London. Because he was within the first fifteen hours since his regeneration, he was able to regrow the hand. (DW: The Christmas Invasion)

Captain Jack Harkness traveled from 200,100 to 1869 using a Vortex Manipulator. After living through the entire 20th century, he found the hand and used it to detect the Doctor whenever he came to the Cardiff Rift to refuel, hoping to find a version of the Doctor which coincided with his own timeline. (DW: Utopia) Jack preserved the hand in a tank or jar which was destroyed by Carys Fletcher. (TW: Day One) However, the container was later seen to be intact, presumably repaired or replaced by Jack.

After the Doctor came to refuel at the Rift, Captain Jack joined the Doctor and brought the severed hand with him. After traveling to the year 100,000,000,000,000, the Doctor, Martha Jones, and Jack met Professor Yana who then became the Master. He took the Doctor's hand from Jack and escaped in the Doctor's TARDIS after he regenerated. (DW: Utopia)

The Doctor was able to fix Jack's Vortex Manipulator so they could travel to 2008. When they encountered the Master, he revealed that he put Richard Lazarus' genetic technology into his laser screwdriver. By using the Doctor's biological code he gained from the hand, the Master was able to age the Doctor 100 years. (DW: The Sound of Drums)

What followed were the events of The Year That Never Was, after which the Doctor reclaimed his severed hand and kept it aboard his TARDIS in the control room. (DW: Last of the Time Lords)

Just as the Doctor and Donna Noble were saying goodbye to Martha after the Sontaran invasion of Earth, the TARDIS set off by itself. (DW: The Poison Sky) The TARDIS had brought the trio to the planet Messaline. The Doctors hand had detected that he had a daughter Jenny. Jenny was created when a sample of The Doctor's DNA was put in a Progenation Machine, thus creating Jenny and attracting the TARDIS, creating a paradox. (DW: The Doctor's Daughter)

The Doctor's hand remained in his TARDIS and was present for the Doctor's apparent regeneration following his being shot by a Dalek. (DW: The Stolen Earth). The regeneration energy was forced into the hand by the Doctor just as he was healed thus he did not continue regenerating. However Donna eventually touched the energised hand which caused a Meta-Crisis from which a new version of the Doctor grew. The new Meta-Crisis Doctor had the intelligence of the original Doctor mixed with Donna's persona and attitude. Later Donna was hit by an electrical blast from Davros which triggered a second Meta-Crisis within Donna. This gave her the same intelligence that the Doctor had, thus technically making two of the same person; Meta-Crisis Doctor and Donna. Unfortunately the Time Lord knowledge that now resided within Donnas' brain was too much and almost killed her until the Doctor wiped her memory. The original Doctor left the Meta-Crisis Doctor in Pete's World with Rose Tyler after he committed genocide by destroying the New Dalek Empire. (DW: Journey's End)

The Meta-Crisis Doctor, grown from the Tenth Doctor's hand, returns in the IDW comic series The Forgotten, now sporting a beard and a black version of the Tenth Doctor's suit. Here, the Meta-Crisis Doctor traps his counterpart's mind in the TARDIS' Matrix and attempts to steal the Tenth Doctor's remaining lives. The final fate of the Meta-Crisis Doctor, and whether or not he survives this encounter, will be known upon the serial's completion on January 21st, 2009.

Behind the scenes

Although Journey's End doesn't go into detail, it is possible to speculate based upon the Doctor's statements to Donna, Rose and Jack that he kept the preserved hand in the TARDIS console room (rather than putting it into storage) for very likely the purpose shown in Journey's End -- as a vessel to stave off a regeneration.