Jathaa sunglider

The Jathaa Sungliders were large, black, saucer-shaped craft employed by the Jathaa when visiting Earth. They moved via a smaller rotating platform of some sort underneath, and contained powerful weapon systems, utilising five energy beams that converge into one powerful beam capable of disintegrating a Sycorax asteroid ship into ash. (DW: The Christmas Invasion)

In 1996 the Torchwood Institute shot down one of these crafts over the North Sea and by 2006 they had managed to reverse-engineer the weapons system. At Christmas of that year they were ordered by prime minister Harriet Jones to use the weapon against the Sycorax spaceship that threatened Earth at the time. (DW: Army of Ghosts, The Christmas Invasion) UNIT later appropriated this technology into the Valiant (DW: The Poison Sky).

When the Cardiff rift fractured, mixing space and time periods, Jathaa ships appeared and hovered over the Taj Mahal. (TW: End of Days)

Behind the Scenes

The Jathaa Sunglider's weapons system is similar to the Death Star's superlaser from Star Wars, which disintegrated the planet Alderaan into ash and meteors.