# How far away was DS9 from Bajor? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted\ **Created:** [January 6, 2010, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-away-was-ds9-from-bajor/523858 "2010-01-06T03:32:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-away-was-ds9-from-bajor/523858/1 "2010-01-06T03:32:04Z")
After it was moved nearer to the wormhole in the pilot episode of _Star Trek: Deep Space Nine_, that is. Too far away for transporter use, IIRC, but did the screenwriters ever say - or were they consistent - as to how long a journey by shuttle or Runabout? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-away-was-ds9-from-bajor/523858/2 "2010-01-06T05:10:54Z")
I can’t find exact numbers, but it appears to be in the [Denorios belt](http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Denorios_Belt), which is approximately 300,000,000 kilometers away. It took 3 hours at impulse speed, though I’m sure the series wasn’t consistent about that. (I think the information is sourced from a role playing game.) Here’s a [map](http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/File:Bajoran_system.gif) that was shown onscreen. The biggest planet is Bajor, the Denorios belt is the white band, and the wormhole is the symbol just inside that white band. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-away-was-ds9-from-bajor/523858/3 "2010-01-06T05:25:45Z")
The largest planet can’t be Bajor - Bajor is inside the belt (you have to pass through it to get from Bajor to Cardassia), and given the numbers, and the distances shown on the map, the largest planet is over 6AU from the Bajoran sun - further than Jupiter is from ours. Bajor’s probably the fourth planet from the sun. May be the third, but I think that might be getting to close to the sun. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-away-was-ds9-from-bajor/523858/4 "2010-01-06T06:08:35Z")
> [@Tengu](#): > > The largest planet can’t be Bajor - Bajor is inside the belt (you have to pass through it to get from Bajor to Cardassia), and given the numbers, and the distances shown on the map, the largest planet is over 6AU from the Bajoran sun - further than Jupiter is from ours. Bajor’s probably the fourth planet from the sun. May be the third, but I think that might be getting to close to the sun. That’s what I thought, too, but I figured the people at [Memory Alpha](http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Bajoran_system) knew more than me. Maybe it’s an error. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-away-was-ds9-from-bajor/523858/5 "2010-01-06T06:40:11Z")
I suspect Bajor may be the largest _rocky_ planet, the other big ones being gas giants. (Oh, there’s another problem with the largest planet being Bajor - assuming the map’s to scale, that planet is f’n HUGE - larger than the difference in the orbits of the next two planets out - there’s no way it’d be M-Class.) Memory Beta lists Bajor as the seventh planet…but that makes the numbers even worse, as if it’s 2 AU from the Belt, it’s about _8_ from the sun - almost out Saturn-way. The only way to make the numbers work in even the vague way Trek does in general is to assume it’s the third or fourth planet. The only way to make it the 7th planet is to assume it’s much closer to the belt than stated. There’s no way that big planet fits anything else we know about the Bajoran system. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-away-was-ds9-from-bajor/523858/6 "2010-01-06T07:01:32Z")
> [@Tengu](#): > > The largest planet can’t be Bajor - Bajor is inside the belt (you have to pass through it to get from Bajor to Cardassia), and given the numbers, and the distances shown on the map, the largest planet is over 6AU from the Bajoran sun - further than Jupiter is from ours. Bajor’s probably the fourth planet from the sun. May be the third, but I think that might be getting to close to the sun. The Bajoran sun might be particularly large, the distance between rings smaller, etc. Basing your statement that the third or fourth planets must be the only habitable ones seems to be skipping the fact that it’s an entirely different solar system that needn’t be arranged like ours. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-away-was-ds9-from-bajor/523858/7 "2010-01-06T07:08:27Z")
NETA:Well, [Memory Beta](http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Bajor) has it as the seventh from the sun, which makes a lot more sense. Still, my second choice would have been the eighth, since it is the largest planet inside the belt. That would be much easier to fanwank. BTW, I found the transcript that says that Bajor is the largest planet. It’s from [“The Nagus”](http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/The_Nagus): > [@](#): > > [Cargo bay] > > (Sisko can hear voices) > NOG: There are four teen > JAKE: Fourteen planets. > (Sisko sneaks in, staying hidden behind barrels, and watches the reading lesson) > NOG: Planets in the Bajoran. What’s that word? > JAKE: System. > NOG: System. > JAKE: That was pretty good. Want to try some more? > NOG: The lar, largest planet is Bajor. It has three moons? > JAKE: You got it. Keep going, keep going. > NOG: The third moon, it has… (Sorry, I’m not comfortable linking directly to the transcript. It might not be kosher with copyright policies around here.) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-away-was-ds9-from-bajor/523858/8 "2010-01-06T07:22:49Z")
Oh, I wrote that about 5 minutes after my previous post, but got sidetracked and didn’t hit the button until later. (I should’ve previewed again.) And I timed out while trying to edit it to take into account the previous responses. I think the “largest rocky planet” is a decent fanwank, although it would make as much sense as calling Earth the largest planet in our solar system. Another fanwank I came up with was that the PADD that Nog was reading was an excerpt of an old book that was inaccurate. It even got the moons wrong. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-away-was-ds9-from-bajor/523858/9 "2010-01-06T13:37:04Z")
(sorry for the triple post) > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > The Bajoran sun might be particularly large, the distance between rings smaller, etc. Basing your statement that the third or fourth planets must be the only habitable ones seems to be skipping the fact that it’s an entirely different solar system that needn’t be arranged like ours. Well, we’ve seen the Bajoran sun onscreen, and it is yellow-white. This suggests that it is a Class G star (sometimes called a yellow dwarf). These max out at about 2.4×10[sup]30[/sup] kg, or 1.2 times the mass of our Sun. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-away-was-ds9-from-bajor/523858/10 "2010-01-06T13:59:38Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > (sorry for the triple post) > Well, we’ve seen the Bajoran sun onscreen, and it is yellow-white. This suggests that it is a Class G star (sometimes called a yellow dwarf). These max out at about 2.4×10[sup]30[/sup] kg, or 1.2 times the mass of our Sun. I’d imagine that a 20% increase in power output isn’t insignificant. If the distance between the planetary orbits is less, I’d imagine that you could pack a few more planets in there. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-away-was-ds9-from-bajor/523858/11 "2010-01-06T14:58:43Z")
> [@Tengu](#): > > Memory Beta lists Bajor as the seventh planet…but that makes the numbers even worse, as if it’s 2 AU from the Belt, it’s about _8_ from the sun - almost out Saturn-way. According to the show, though, the 8th planet of the system is also habitable (and inhabited) which suggests that the habitable zone of the sun is further out. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-away-was-ds9-from-bajor/523858/12 "2010-01-06T15:42:47Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > The Bajoran sun might be particularly large, the distance between rings smaller, etc. Basing your statement that the third or fourth planets must be the only habitable ones seems to be skipping the fact that it’s an entirely different solar system that needn’t be arranged like ours. No, it’s based on the fact that saying Bajor is 2 AU (3,000,000,000 km) away from the Denarios Belt means that if it’s the 7th planet, the habitable zone would cover an area 8 to 12 AU away from the sun. In order to do that, the sun would have to be too big for the inner planets to exist. In order for it to be 2 AU from the Denarios belt, and for the system to have 14 planets at all, let alone 8 between the sun and the belt, it has to be moved in a lot closer to the sun. The 3rd and 4th planets are about 1.5 and 2 AU away from the star - getting out to the extreme far end of the inhabitable zone of our system. The 5th planet could arguably be within the zone, too…but it’s named as a different planet to Bajor herself. You have to contradict at least one bit of given information to make the system work - either Bajor is about the middle of the system (meaning it’s nowhere near 2 AU away from the belt), or it’s one of the non-named planets closer to the sun, meaning it’s nowhere near 7, nor is it outside the Belt (which it explicitly can’t be, due to the whole ‘ancient astronauts from Bajor passed through it on the way to Cardassia’ thing, anyway). > [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > According to the show, though, the 8th planet of the system is also habitable (and inhabited) which suggests that the habitable zone of the sun is further out. Again, in order for the inhabitable zone to be 8-12 AU out - especially given that Bajor is depicted as very similar to Earth in climate - the innermost planets would be unable to exist. In order for the habitable zone to cover the 7th and 8th planets\*, the distances have to be much smaller than stated. For the distances to work out, the habitable zone has to be in the middle of the inner planets, not the middle of the system. - _Both_ of which are named as separate planets from Bajor itself, BTW. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-away-was-ds9-from-bajor/523858/13 "2010-01-06T21:47:35Z")
> [@Tengu](#): > > (which it explicitly can’t be, due to the whole ‘ancient astronauts from Bajor passed through it on the way to Cardassia’ thing, anyway). Maybe it was a wrong way Corrigan situation? Or maybe the DS9 writers are just kind of careless ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-away-was-ds9-from-bajor/523858/14 "2010-01-07T07:01:56Z")
This is probably the reason the actual distance was never mentioned onscreen. (Like I said, it comes from a role playing game.) I know I personally thought it was a lot shorter than 2 AU. Tengu, if you have the time, can you come up with a system that could work with only what is said onscreen? (Yes, I’m eliminating the map, too. They are often a source of discrepancies.) ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-away-was-ds9-from-bajor/523858/15 "2010-01-07T12:43:49Z")
I haven’t seen all the episodes recently, so I can’t say for sure this doesn’t contradict anything, but I don’t THINK the Belt is ever stated to be between two specific planets, so, discarding the map, the easiest way to salvage all the other stated information is to place the Belt further out in the system, and assume the naming system of the Bajor system’s planets is odd (and since they’re named for the inhabited planet, not the primary star (whose name is unknown), that’s actually a given). So, the system could go, say, Sun - B-I, B-II, B-III, B-IV, B-V, B-VI, Bajor, B-VII, B-VIII, B-IX, B-X, B-XI, Belt, B-XII, B-XIII. (The belt could be shuffled around a planet or two either way, depending how much variance there is in the planets’ orbits.) This would allow Bajor through Bajor-VIII to be in a reasonably defined habitable zone (which could also include B-VI), while still allowing Bajor to be 2 AU away from the belt. To keep Bajor as the largest planet, one has to assume that the Bajor system is unusual and lacks gas giants, and, given the range of M-Class planets, the difference between the inhabitable planets is relatively minor - though the uninhabitable ones could be as wee as they can get before dropping below the threshold of ‘planet’. (Or, one could assume that gas giants do exist in the system, and they just meant ‘largest rocky planet’ or ‘largest M-Class’ planet.) ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-away-was-ds9-from-bajor/523858/16 "2010-01-07T12:58:36Z")
> [@Tengu](#): > > I suspect Bajor may be the largest _rocky_ planet, the other big ones being gas giants. (Oh, there’s another problem with the largest planet being Bajor - assuming the map’s to scale, that planet is f’n HUGE - larger than the difference in the orbits of the next two planets out - there’s no way it’d be M-Class.) The sizes of individual planets wouldn’t be given on the same scale as the planetary orbits – there’s just no way to fit both of them into a reasonable range from “smallest dot you can see” and “largest practical total display size”. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-away-was-ds9-from-bajor/523858/17 "2010-01-07T14:45:34Z")
Another potential solution is that several of the inner planets are actually binaries or trinaries, tidally locked bodies of similar sizes. ---
**Author:** ![Garek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Garek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garek)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2022, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-away-was-ds9-from-bajor/523858/18 "2022-04-27T20:24:07Z")
There’s another issue here: the planet’s orbit. We know from the show that the wormhole is stable, with fixed entrances on each size. Since we can assume Bajor orbits its sun, that would mean that its closest to the wormhole and DS9 for one day every year, and halfway through the year its very far away on the other side of the sun. This is why they would have moved DS9 close to the wormhole. DS9 stays a fixed distance from the wormhole, but its distance to Bajor varies throughout the year. It also likely a inconsistency problem in the show. If they say Bajor is 3 hours away in multiple episodes, then it would only make sense if it was the same time of year every time they mention the travel time. It would be harder though because when the sun sits between bajor and DS9, they would have to fly a curved (longer) path around the sun and that path’s length would depend on how close the path is to the sun. If they mention different travel times from Bajor to DS9 and those times can be correlated with seasons or dates (ie someone’s birthday, the harvest festival, holidays) then we could estimate the distance but someone would really have to go through yhe script for that. Ive seen DS9 several times, and my guess is there simply isnt enough information in the show to come uo with an accurate answer and even if there was, it would only be accurate at one point in the planets orbit. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2022, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-away-was-ds9-from-bajor/523858/19 "2022-04-28T21:19:49Z")
Thanks, **Garek** (a cousin of Garak’s)? Please note that this is a 12-year-old thread. As it happens, I recently saw this 2019 crowdfunded documentary about DS9, _What We Left Behind_, and really enjoyed it. Good interviews with the cast, top production brass, tech folks, studio poobahs etc. A highlight was a reunion of several key writers, talking through the first episode of a hypothetical new season of the show. Highly recommended for any fan: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/D4LPDX6uqSM/maxresdefault.jpg "What We Left Behind: Looking Back At Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (2019) - Official Trailer (HD)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4LPDX6uqSM) ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2022, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-away-was-ds9-from-bajor/523858/20 "2022-05-01T21:42:40Z")
According to Miles in “The House of Quark”, when he’s talking with Keiko about her moving down to Bajor with Molly to do botanist stuff, Bajor is only three hours away in a runabout from Deep Space Nine. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-away-was-ds9-from-bajor/523858.md?page=2)