Sol system

AT: "xx"

A painting of four planets of the Sol system

The Sol system (also known as Solar system or Terran system) was a star system in Sector 001 (or Sol sector) of the Alpha Quadrant. It consisted of a primary, named Sol, and nine planets. The third planet, Earth, was the homeworld of the Humans who also colonized Earth's only natural satellite, Luna, and other planets of the system, e.g., Venus, Mars, and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Other planets in the system were Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. The Sol System also contained an asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. (ENT: "Terra Nova", "Terra Prime"; TOS: "The Cage", "Wolf in the Fold", TNG: "Conspiracy", "The Best of Both Worlds"; Star Trek Generations; VOY: "Dark Frontier")

Location

The location of the Sol system in the Milky Way Galaxy was depicted on a Federation star chart in 2293. This system was located near Tau Ceti, Alpha Centauri, and Sirius. (TOS: "The Cage", Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country) The location of the Sol system was also seen in a viewscreen chart displayed by the USS Enterprise-D library computer. (TNG: "The Naked Now", "The Last Outpost", "Datalore", "Conspiracy")

The location of Sol on "The Explored Galaxy" wall chart

The location of Sol in a star chart

Earth solar system, The changeling.jpg

Chart 14A: The Sol system: The outer and inner systems.

The Sol system. Inner system.

History

The Sol system formed approximately 4 billion years ago. Approximately three and a half billion years ago, life began on Earth. (TNG: "The Chase", "All Good Things...")

A graphic depicting the Sol system was displayed in the office where Rain Robinson worked, at the Griffith Observatory in California in 1996. The same graphic was displayed in Deep Space 9's classroom in 2370. (VOY: "Future's End"; DS9: "Cardassians") Deep Space 9's classroom featured a painting of four planets of the Sol system including Earth and Saturn earlier. (DS9: "The Nagus")

In 2254, the inner system of Sol was depicted on a map. This map was scanned by the Talosians. (TOS: "The Cage")

Three years later, Captain James T. Kirk requested that Spock bring up Chart 14A for Nomad to scan. Chart 14A was a map of the Sol system. (TOS: "The Changeling")

In 2371, a microscopic singularity passed through the system and exploded. (DS9: "Past Tense, Part I")

The Borg maintained a transwarp conduit with an aperture less than a light year away from Earth. The conduit was collapsed by the USS Voyager in 2378. (VOY: "Endgame")

In an alternate timeline, all major inhabited planets and colonies in the Sol system were destroyed by the Xindi weapon. This ended when the Enterprise NX-01 crew sacrificed themselves to change the future by erasing interspatial parasites from Jonathan Archer, allowing him to remain in command and find and destroy the weapon. (ENT: "Twilight")

In another alternate timeline, the entire Sol system was destroyed in a temporal explosion when Henry Starling took the timeship Aeon from the 20th century to the 29th century without properly calibrating the temporal matrix. This event nearly happened but was stopped when Captain Janeway manually fired a photon torpedo from USS Voyager at the Aeon as it entered the temporal rift, destroying it and killing Starling. (VOY: "Future's End", "Future's End, Part II")

System

• Sol (primary star)
  • Mercury (planet)
  • Venus (planet)

Earth (Sol III)

• • Earth (planet)
    • Luna (The Moon; moon)
    • see objects in Earth orbit for more.
  • Burke (comet; crashed into Mars 2155)
  • Mars (planet)
    • Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards (orbiting drydocks)
  • Asteroid Belt
  • Jupiter (planet)
    • Ganymede (moon)
    • Moons of Jupiter (moons)
    • Jupiter Outpost 92
    • Jupiter Station (space station)
  • Saturn (planet)
    • Mimas (moon)
    • Rhea (moon)
    • Titan (moon)
  • Uranus (planet)
  • Neptune (planet)
    • Triton (moon)
  • Halley's Comet (comet)
  • Pluto (planet)

Appendices

Background information

The chart naming stars within 20 light years of Sol was drawn by Rick Sternbach for the Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology in the late 1970s. Found on page 77, this chart showed Earth commercial and exploration routes after the use of warp drive began.

According to Star Trek: Star Charts (Pg. 19), although the Sol system is located in the exact corner of the sector and was thus divided equally among all eight sectors, it is considered to be in Sector 001 for purposes of celestial navigation. Similarity, while the Sol system is divided equally between the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, it is considered to be part of the Alpha Quadrant.

According to The Worlds of the Federation, there was a tenth planet beyond Pluto.

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU), an Earth organization that establishes standards for the definition and naming of celestial bodies and their features, set a classification of the term "planet" that resulted in Pluto being reclassified as a "dwarf planet". With the addition of other features as "dwarf planets"–including Ceres, Eris, Haumea and Makemake–there are currently eight planets and at least five dwarf planets in the Sol system as of 2013.

Apocrypha

The real-world debate on the status of Pluto as a planet was referenced in the novel Before Dishonor.

External links

• Solar System at Wikipedia
• Template:NCwiki