Epsilon Eridani was a star system in the Beta Quadrant,
This was a single star system consisting of the orange dwarf star Ran (the proper name for Epsilon Eridani). (TNG: "The Naked Now" production art)
Stellar cartography[]
The Epsilon Eridani system was visible from Earth in the constellation Eridanus. This system was approximately 11 light years from Sol.
The location of Epsilon Eridani on a United Earth star chart, 2154
In the 2150s, this system's position was labeled on an United Earth star chart which was displayed in several crew and guest quarters aboard the Enterprise. (Star Trek: Enterprise, set decoration)
In 2364, the location of Epsilon Eridani was labeled in a star chart of a stellar neighborhood with Sol at the center. This chart was stored in the USS Enterprise-D library computer. (TNG: "The Naked Now", production art)
Later that year, the chart was scanned by Outpost 63. (TNG: "The Last Outpost", production art)
Appendices[]
Background information[]
This star was only mentioned in writing.
This system's quadrant of origin was inferred based on the position of neighboring locations – 61 Cygni, Alpha Centauri, Procyon, Sol, Tau Ceti, and Wolf 359 – as seen in the star charts appearing in the Star Trek: Discovery episode "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad" and in the Star Trek: Picard episode "Maps and Legends".
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Source for production art
The chart naming stars within twenty light years of Sol was drawn by Rick Sternbach for the Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology (p. 77) in the late 1970s. This chart showed Earth commercial and exploration routes after the use of warp drive began. Epsilon Eridani was the destination for two major commercial routes, Alpha Centauri-Epsilon Eridani and Sol-Epsilon Eridani.
Information on this system was derived from the episodes, the reference works Star Trek: Star Charts and Stellar Cartography: The Starfleet Reference Library, and real-world sources. The reference works were used extensively in the creation of star charts seen in Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Star Trek: Prodigy, and Star Trek: Lower Decks. The real-world information added to the article was current as of 2025.
The star chart seen in the series Star Trek: Enterprise made its first appearance in Crewman Daniels quarters in "Cold Front". It was also seen in several other episodes of the series, from 2151 to 2154. (For more information, see Federation star charts#United Earth Alpha/Beta star chart)
Both the Star Trek: Star Charts (p. 66) and Stellar Cartography: The Starfleet Reference Library ("Federation Historical Highlights, 2161-2385") located the Axanar homeworld in this star system.
The current location of Epsilon Eridani in the Beta Quadrant was based on the most recent star charts seen in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Section 31.
Epsilon Eridani had, on occasion, been considered as a candidate for Vulcan's sun. However, in 1991, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, along with three scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, instead endorsed 40 Eridani A for the location of the Vulcan system. Their rationale was that, since Epsilon Eridani was less than a billion years old, "life on any planet around Epsilon Eridani would not have had time to evolve beyond the level of bacteria. On the other hand, an intelligent civilization could have evolved over the aeons on a planet circling 40 Eridani. So the latter is the more likely Vulcan sun." [1]
By 2019, the star had been confirmed to have one exoplanet, the gas giant named AEgir.
External links[]
- Epsilon Eridani at Wikipedia
- Epsilon Eridani at the Internet Stellar Database
- Epsilon Eridani at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works