The late David Bowie has scooped his first US number one album

The 'Lazarus' singer's 27th studio LP, 'Blackstar', sold 181,000 copies in its first week of release, knocking Adele's '25' off the top of the Billboard 200 chart.

The chart takes into account traditional sales, streaming equivalent albums and track equivalent albums (TEA) and the record - which was released two days before Bowie died of cancer aged 69 on January 10 - sold 174,000 pure sales, the musical icon's biggest week of sales since electronic tracking of point-of-sale music purchases began in 1991.

In addition, nine of Bowie's previous albums also appeared on this week's Billboard 200 chart, including the 'Best of Bowie' greatest hits collection - which originally peaked at number 70 in 2002 - at number four and 'The Rise and Fall of  Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars' at 21.

Over in the UK, 'Blackstar' debuted at number one with sales of 150,000.

Over 500,000 Bowie records have been purchased in the last week in Britain, with 19 of his previous albums making the top 100, and 10 LPs taking slots in the top 40.

Duncan Jones has returned to social media for the first time since the death of his father David Bowie.

The 'Moon' filmmaker announced last week he would be "offline for a while" following the passing of the legendary singer but came back to Twitter this morning to share a letter written to the 'Fashion' singer by a palliative care doctor.

Duncan didn't comment directly, but retweeted a link posted by the Marie Curie organisation to a letter from Dr. Mark Taubert, who wrote about how Bowie's private cancer battle helped him ease the concerns of a dying patient.

At one point he wrote: "At the beginning of that week I had a discussion with a hospital patient, facing the end of her life.

"We discussed your death and your music, and it got us talking about numerous weighty subjects, that are not always straightforward to discuss with someone facing their own demise. In fact, your story became a way for us to communicate very openly about death, something many doctors and nurses struggle to introduce as a topic of conversation."

The letter was littered with references to the 'Fame' singer's lyrics and also included a number of thank yous to Bowie.

Of his final album, 'Blackstar', the doctor wrote: "Thank you for 'Lazarus' and Blackstar. I am a palliative care doctor, and what you have done in the time surrounding your death has had a profound effect on me and many people I work with.

"Your album is strewn with references, hints and allusions. As always, you don't make interpretation all that easy, but perhaps that isn't the point."

The open letter concluded with the physician explaining how Bowie's passing helped his patient think about her "own dying moments".

He wrote: "We both wondered who may have been around you when you took your last breath and whether anyone was holding your hand.

"I believe this was an aspect of the vision she had of her own dying moments that was of utmost importance to her, and you gave her a way of expressing this most personal longing to me, a relative stranger."