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In Star Trek: Voyager, there is a big deal made about them warping far beyond contact with any Federation bases, beause they're all the way out in "the Delta Quadrant".

To me, this indicates that there is a finite area of space that has been explored in the Star Trek universe up to this point.

So, including for the sake of this question the Delta Quadrant that they were lost in, and all of explored Space up to that point in the series, how much of Space is included in the Federation-explored region of the Star Trek Universe?

Actual units of measurement would be ideal, but are not required if a general idea would better describe the size of the known universe.

Zibbobz
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    People will (hopefully) come along and do proper answers, but in short, it’s meant to be a percentage of our real-world galaxy. “Quadrant”, as in Delta Quadrant, refers to a quarter of our galaxy. – Paul D. Waite Feb 14 '14 at 16:20
  • @PaulD.Waite So everythig is meant to take place in the Milky Way? – Zibbobz Feb 14 '14 at 16:24
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    pretty much. This wasn’t quite so nailed down in The Original Series (“quadrant” was used more loosely there, the idea of four galactic quadrants didn’t come up until TNG), and I think there was an episode there about the edge of our galaxy. But yes. – Paul D. Waite Feb 14 '14 at 16:54
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    There were also two examples of aliens from the Andromeda Galaxy in the original series, and in the episode "By Any Other Name" where one of these alien races appeared, it was mentioned that the Enterprise would take thousands of years to reach Andromeda: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy ...on the other hand, Star Trek V had them reaching a planet at the center of the galaxy in a very short time, but maybe that movie is best forgotten (or maybe "center of the galaxy" just meant "in some very broadly-defined central region of the galaxy") – Hypnosifl Feb 14 '14 at 18:00
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    @PaulD.Waite In later series Quadrant as one of the 4 quadrants of the galaxy is the primary meaning, but minor quadrants were retained in TNG - such as Morgana Quadrant and Quadrant 448 – Izkata Feb 14 '14 at 22:40
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    The Star Trek universe is a spheroid region 705 meters in diameter. –  Feb 15 '14 at 08:47
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    @Emracool Source? – Zibbobz Feb 15 '14 at 16:08
  • If you think about it, it is pretty obvious that "there is a finite area of space that has been explored": it's all about exploration, the motto itself is "to go where no man has gone before", this wouldn't be possible if there weren't unexplored areas. – o0'. Feb 15 '14 at 20:36
  • @Zibbobz http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvaJ9Fcov2w#t=03m06 – Kyle Jones Feb 15 '14 at 21:53
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    @Wikis That question asks for the shape of the universe, this one is asking for its size. The two questions are distinct, and the answers provided for the other question offer maps, but no dimensions. – Zibbobz Feb 19 '14 at 16:03
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    The map (that still works) in BertF's answer to the other question displays scale to determine the size of the universe. – phantom42 Feb 19 '14 at 16:30
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    @phantom42 Didn't notice that, but I still maintain that this is a separate question. – Zibbobz Feb 19 '14 at 16:37
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    @Zibbobz I agree; voted to reopen. To everyone else: "How much space has the Federation explored?" not only isn't the same question, it isn't answered on that question, either – Izkata Feb 20 '14 at 00:14
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    @phantom42 I disgree on duplication. When two different questions reference the same external information in an answer (in this case an image), it should not follow that one question is a duplicate of the other. Can one image not anwser a 1000 questions? – Matthew Wilcoxson Feb 20 '14 at 16:37
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    @MatthewWilcoxson, We consider questions as duplicates if either the question OR any of the answers address the question asked. If you feel we should change our policy, bring it up on meta. – phantom42 Feb 20 '14 at 16:46
  • A note on my re-opening this question. It was marked as a dupe of this, but to my mind none of the answers do address the central premise of this question, which is how much space covers the Federation-explored region? The maps don't really cover this well, not as well as the answers below do anyway. – Often Right May 02 '16 at 02:17

3 Answers3

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Star Trek takes place in our galaxy, in the late 24th century. (with the most-distant movie set in 2379.) The Milky Way Galaxy is absurdly big -- some 120,000 light-years in diameter, with a center some 27,000 light years away from Earth. The nearest galaxy is the Small Magellanic Cloud, some 200,000 light-years away.

Since Voyager found themselves 70,000 light-years from home, and projected their time to get home at 75 years, we can infer an effective cruising speed of 933 ly/y, or 2-3 ly/day. Considering that they weren't stocked for it, and had to scavenge along the way, one can presume that a well-stocked round-trip vessel with custom-designed engines would, at best, match their speed.

Taken together, that means that a Federation Expedition to reach the closest galaxy and return home would take over 400 years. Which means that, if they left today with 24th-century technology, such an expedition wouldn't return until some thirty years after the star trek canon ends.

So, Star Trek's "universe" is really just a portion of our current galaxy.

It's worth noting that, although not closely followed in the show itself, the official star trek separation of "quadrants" uses a meridian pretty close to Sol, the star around which Earth orbits. So, the federation encompasses some territory in both the "alpha" and "beta" quadrants, as do the major and minor powers with which it can negotiate, plus some special-case exploration to the "delta" and "gamma" quadrants, from Voyager's journey plus the DS9 wormhole.

Of course, this only explores the Federation's domain of exploration and influence. Several other powers, such as the Borg, the Fluidic-space aliens, and cosmic-level powers such as Q have unmeasured spheres of dominion, and have probable access to whole galaxies that the Federation does not.

DougM
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    Of course, the reported time of several journeies call into question the validity of a "cruising speed", due to the high variance in stated times. (The Enterprise-E made it from the Romulan neutral zone to Earth in less than a day, the Defiant went from Earth to DS9 in about a week, and Kirk's Enterprise traveled to both the galactic core and the edge of the galaxy). I'm of the opinion that actual travel time in explored space can be orders of magnitude faster than Voyager's quote due to improved navigation, but the stated explored area is still significantly less than half of our galaxy. – DougM Feb 14 '14 at 16:48
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    Ha, but what is "the edge of the galaxy"? Its shape resembles a disk rather than a sphere, so if you look at it sideways, the way out of the galaxy from Earth is not that far at all! – Mr Lister Feb 14 '14 at 21:01
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    Distances and travel speeds in Star Trek are so inconsistent that they are pretty much bullshit. For example the Defiant makes a trip to the badlands in around 6 hours at warp 7. This is equivalent to about 2 lj/day, but warp 7 is several orders of magnitude slower than the Voyager's typical cruise speed. At other occasions, shuttles are able to travel distances of 1-2 light years in a matter of minutes. – Damon Feb 14 '14 at 22:07
  • @Damon The definitions of warp speed numbers have also changed, so I'm not sure you can say that if two ships from different series with the same warp speed travel at the same speed. – Mr Lister Feb 15 '14 at 06:00
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    @MrLister: That is right, but I chose two ships from an identical time and generation (they only differ in one being an explicit warship of the kind that the federation "doesn't build"). Thus, they ought to use the same warp speed scale. Asymptotic warp scale (with Warp 10 being "infinite speed") has been in use since early TNG (and broken a few times). Warp speed is not even consistent within the same series (eg. in Voyager, warp 9.975 corresponds to anything from 1500c to 3000c in different episodes). – Damon Feb 15 '14 at 10:51
  • Hey, @Damon -- do you have a source for Voyager cruising at more than Warp 7? – DougM Feb 16 '14 at 00:05
  • @DougM: Pick any episode where spending less time matters more than saving antideuterium (which, apart from "plot", is the only valid reason for travelling deliberately slow on a "correct geometry pylon" ship, or a "variable geometry" one in this case, though making a starship more "streamlined" is kind of ridiculous anyway, if you ask me). Thus, pick any episode the Voyager encounters a Borg cube. – Damon Feb 16 '14 at 14:40
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    @Damon: If the Voyager maintained its "top speed" all the time, it'd wear out. Every vehicle ever made has a "cruising speed", at which it can run without undue strain on its engines. IIRC, the semi-canon technical manual listed the top speed for each of its ships, typically 70% of its maximum speed. – DougM Feb 16 '14 at 16:15
  • Warp speed is exactly as fast as the episode's story demands, other than that you can only reliably say that bigger numbers are faster than slower ones. – Damon Feb 16 '14 at 16:50
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    Example: O'Brian and Bashir travel to Risa both for holiday and for conventions. Direct path is about 90lj, but that'd be very close to the Cardassian border (so it's more like 100lj). Assuming 3lj/day it would be over 1 month one way, but they do it in shuttles capable of only warp 5. They gotta have a hell lot of holiday in starfleet! OTOH, the Destiny, a Sovereign-class starship capable of warp 9.99, isn't able to bring the Dex symbiont to Trill (or close to a trained host anywhere in range) in time although Trill is a mere 20lj away. There is no reasonable explanation but "plot". – Damon Feb 16 '14 at 22:08
  • true enough, @Damon. but as my first comment noted, I'm of the opinion that some unstated variables could serve as justifications for the variable travel times seen. Not that it's even close to on-topic anyway. :) – DougM Feb 16 '14 at 22:34
  • I just watched Where No One Has Gone Before from TNG season 1, in which The Traveller transports the Enterprise-D over 2.7 million lightyears away, and Data mentions it would take 300 years at maximum sustainable speed (warp 9.2) to get home. Which puts warp 9.2 at 2,700,000/300/(365*24) = 1.02 ly/h (about 48 times faster than the Defiant). – Damon Jul 08 '14 at 16:17
  • And just now I watched the new (alternate timeline) Enterprise movie, turns out that a trip to Vulcan which is 16ly away at maximum warp (= warp 8) is 6 minutes. That's 160ly/h @ warp 8. Alternate timeline yes... but that's before the splice, so it should be accurate for the regular timeline. – Damon Sep 13 '15 at 19:13
  • Another figure from "Where Silence Has Lease", 5 seconds at warp 2 equals 1.4 parsecs or 4.6 light years. Thus, warp 2 corresponds to little under one light year per second. Which means that Janeway was exaggerating when she stated the time it would take the Voyager to get home. They could make the trip in about 19 hours at warp 2! – Damon Oct 27 '15 at 18:01
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    @Damon: Sorry but what is a lj? – Lightness Races in Orbit Oct 27 '16 at 16:44
  • I would submit that the Q have the whole universe as their dominion given their abilities. They're practically gods compared to humanity and the other beings that compose the Federation and various races in the Milky Way. Q (TNG/VOY) himself admits that he's been places that humanity could only dream of, that do not even fall within the bounds of humanity's scope of knowledge. – MissouriSpartan Jun 11 '19 at 18:23
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In "The Dauphin" (tenth episode of the second season of Next Generation") Wesley Crusher states: "Only 19% of the galaxy has been explored. The rest it out there, waiting."

This equates to around 70'000 sq lightyears of the galaxy (If we make the incorrect but simplifying assumption that the galaxy is "flat").

If we assume Earth is at the centre of the Federation (and assume that exploration has progress in all directions at the same rate) the furthest distance the Federation has explored is out to about 10'000 light years...

Matthew Wilcoxson
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Known/explored universe raises the question of how well explored. If we include everything that has ever been directly looked at (and thus excluding cosmic background radiation - the echo of the big bang - which we can observe today):

These two are the most significant references:

ben
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