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Published May 29, 2024

The Darkest Treks: Star Trek's Closest Calls with Black Holes

From lost probes to ancient treasure, Starfleet's encounters with black holes require science know-how and faith of the heart.

This article contains story details and plot points for Star Trek: Discovery's "Lagrange Point."

StarTrek.com

As the journey of Star Trek: Discovery comes close to reaching its endpoint, the eponymous starship and crew have found themselves at the end of a very long road. In the search for the technology left behind by the mysterious Progenitors , we learn that the technology itself has been hidden at a specific spot, right in a tricky place, between two black holes. In scientific terms, this is called a " Lagrange Point ," which is where the episode gets its name and refers to a location in space between two bodies in which gravitational attraction and repulsion are enhanced, creating what NASA calls "parking spots," in space.

In this case, the two bodies that have created a small parking spot are two black holes, rendered in all their glory, resembling what physicist Kip Thorne posits black holes would really look like if observed from a spaceship. But, Star Trek has been thinking about black holes, long before current science was really sure what they might look like, and, as such, Starfleet's history with this phenomenon goes deep. So deep, you might say, that light can't even escape!

Here's a brief history of Star Trek 's best black hole adventures, and how these wonderfully mysterious phenomena continue to pull us in.

Voyager 6 … I Presume?

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

In Star Trek: The Motion Picture , the crew of the Enterprise learn that a giant machine intelligence known as V'Ger is really a mash-up of an ancient alien lifeform and an old Earth space probe called Voyager 6 . Decker tells us that the probe "disappeared into what they used to call a black hole." In 1979, the same year as the Disney sci-fi romp titled The Black Hole , the actual term "black hole" was still relatively new, at least in the popular consciousness. Although the etymology of "black hole," can be traced to the early 1960s, it was not until 1967 — smack-dab in the middle of the first run of The Original Series — that the scientific term became more widely used. Before the 1960s, referring to a collapsed star with an unbeatable gravitational pull wasn't standardized, and as far back as the 1700s, the term "dark star" was often used instead.

"Beyond the Farthest Star"

This is why Decker says people used to call various gravitational phenomena black holes. At the time, the coinage was still fairly new! In The Animated Series debut episode, "Beyond the Farthest Star," the Enterprise gets into the orbit of a "dead star," which is an imprecise astronomical term, because again, at the time, black holes had just recently become fully codified as black holes.The 1967 TOS episode " Tomorrow is Yesterday ," also mentions that the Enterprise uses a "black star" to create a slingshot effect and travel back in time. In theoretical physics, a "black star" is a kind of alternative theory to a black hole, but, it's also possible that in "Tomorrow is Yesterday," Starfleet merely called it a black star, and it was really a black hole.

In real life, NASA has not lost any probes to black holes, at least not that we know. But, on Voyager I and Voyager II , there is a golden record, containing various pieces of information about Earth, including an audio recording of Nick Sagan saying, "Hello from the children of planet Earth." Sagan is the son of Carl Sagan and was a writer for The Next Generation and Voyager .

Singularity Headaches from Voyager to Enterprise

"Parallax"

Speaking of spacecraft called " Voyager ," the wayward crew in Star Trek: Voyager dealt with more than their fair share of black hole conundrums. In the second regular episode of Voyager , ever, " Parallax ," they encounter an event horizon of a "quantum singularity." In physics, the center of a black hole is called a singularity, the place of infinite density. In "Parallax," the proximity to this singularity the Voyager crew believed there was another ship trapped in the same area of space, but, in reality, it was a time-delayed echo of Voyager itself.

In the episode " Hunters ," the Voyager crew was able to transform a microsingularity into a full-blown black hole, and thus, destroy an attacking Hirogen ship. A few years later in Earth time — but roughly 200 years prior in Star Trek time —  the Enterprise episode " Singularity " found the crew of the NX-01 skirting the edge of a black hole, resulting in everyone becoming obsessed with irritating minutiae. You could say, the proximity to the singularity of a black hole made the crew single-minded .

Real Black Holes Come To Star Trek

"If Memory Serves"

As NASA has pointed out over the years, black holes are not fully understood by contemporary science, an evolving truth that is reflected over the years throughout all of Star Trek , too. This is why, it wasn't until the 2019 Discovery episode " If Memory Serves " that we got our first Star Trek glimpse of what current science thinks a black hole might really look like. When siblings Spock and Burnham take an unauthorized road trip to Talos IV, the Talosians create an illusionary black hole around their planet to ward off the visitors. From this point, all versions of Star Trek have begun using this conception of black holes on-screen. While the red-matter-generated black hole Spock created in the 2009 Star Trek film looks incredible, the version first depicted in Discovery Season 2 is more scientifically up-to-date.

This contemporary version of a black hole also appeared in the Strange New Worlds episode " Memento Mori ," in which the Enterprise crew uses the gravity of a brown dwarf star — tethered to a black hole — to escape attacks from the Gorn. A black star of this nature also appears in the opening credits of every single episode of Lower Decks , in which it appears the U.S.S. Cerritos almost gets sucked into a black hole, but, thankfully, narrowly escapes.

"Lagrange Point"

Because Discovery pioneered this newer look for black holes, it's fitting that two black holes appear in the penultimate episode of the entire series. From navigating the multiverse to the mycelial network, Discovery has had more than its fair share of encounters with the stormy weather of outer space. But, with the double black holes of "Lagrange Point," Discovery proves that when it comes to space obstacles, sometimes, the classics work best.

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Ryan Britt is the author of the nonfiction books Phasers on Stun! How the Making and Remaking of Star Trek Changed the World (2022), The Spice Must Flow: The Journey of Dune from Cult Novels to Visionary Sci-Fi Movies (2023), and the essay collection Luke Skywalker Can’t Read (2015). He is a longtime contributor to Star Trek.com and his writing regularly appears with Inverse, Den of Geek!, Esquire and elsewhere. He lives in Portland, Maine with his family.

Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-4 are streaming exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., the UK, Canada, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia and Austria. Seasons 2 and 3 also are available on the Pluto TV “Star Trek” channel in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. The series streams on Super Drama in Japan, TVNZ in New Zealand, and SkyShowtime in Spain, Portugal, Poland, The Nordics, The Netherlands, and Central and Eastern Europe and also airs on Cosmote TV in Greece. The series is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.

The Scientific Teen

Stem by the youth, for the youth.

• Jun 1, 2021

Gateway to the Stars: Wormholes

Updated: Jun 27, 2021

By Ria Srivastava

It took 9.5 years for the New Horizons spacecraft just to get to Pluto which is still within our solar system. The nearest star (after our Sun) is more than 40 trillion kilometers away! Wouldn’t it be convenient if the universe offered us a shortcut?

What is a Wormhole?

Spaceships on Star Trek: Deep Space 9 regularly take a shortcut between distant parts of the Universe by traveling through a wormhole, a kind of spacetime tunnel.

Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity profoundly changed our thinking about fundamental concepts in physics, such as space and time. But it also left us with some deep mysteries. One was black holes, which were only detected over the past few years. Another was “wormholes” — bridges connecting different points in spacetime, in theory providing shortcuts for space travellers.

As the theory allows the fabric of spacetime to be stretched and bent, one can imagine all sorts of possible configurations. You can picture a wormhole as a kind of tunnel that connects two points in spacetime. That tunnel could be a straight chute or take a more winding path. If the wormhole is ‘traversable,’ it acts as a shortcut through spacetime, connecting two points that would otherwise be far apart.

Types of Wormholes

Einstein-Rosen Bridge

In 1935, Einstein and physicist Nathan Rosen described how two sheets of spacetime can be joined together, creating a bridge between two universes. This is one kind of wormhole: it would look like a black hole on one end, and an anti-black hole, or white hole, on the other end. A white hole acts like the reverse of a black hole by emitting energy while not allowing anything to enter. However, this wormhole won’t be traversable because it takes infinite amounts of time to cross over to the opposite universe and they close shut in the middle.

2. Primordial String Theory Wormholes

If string theory or one of its variations is the correct description of our universe, then our universe might even have a tangled web of wormholes already. Shortly after the Big Bang, quantum fluctuations ( In quantum physics, a quantum fluctuation is a temporary random change in the amount of energy in a point in space) at the smallest scales, far, far smaller than an atom may have created many, many traversable wormholes. Threaded through them are strings called cosmic strings. The cosmic strings keep the wormholes open against gravity. In the first billionth second of the Big Bang, the ends of these tiny, tiny wormholes were pulled light years apart scattering them through the universe. These wormholes may still be around today, waiting to be discovered.

3. Artificial Wormholes

To be traversable and useful, wormholes need to have certain properties. First, it must connect to distant parts of space-time. Second, it should not contain any event horizons, ( an event horizon is the boundary defining the region of space around a black hole from which nothing, not even light, can escape) which would block two-way travel. Thirdly, it has to be sufficiently large and kept open against the force of gravity, which tries to close them. Physicists have discovered that the presence of exotic matter can hold a wormhole open.

Exotic matter, not to be confused with dark matter, is a form of matter that has negative energy density and negative pressure and is repelled rather than attracted by gravity. Exotic matter must exert enormous pressure to push space-time open, greater than even the pressure of the centres of neutron stars. So far exotic matter usually comes in the form of particles in quantum experiments so no one knows if enough exotic matter to build a wormhole can exist all in one place.

The vacuum of space itself may work as exotic matter. Quantum fluctuations in empty space constantly creates pairs of particles and antiparticles, only for them to be annihilated an instant later. The vacuum of space has millions of such fluctuations taking place, and we can already manipulate them to produce an effect similar to exotic matter, which could be used to stabilize the wormhole. This way we could leave one end of a wormhole in orbit around the earth with the other end in deep space.

Can we prove that wormholes exist?

In a new paper, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Society, Russian astronomers suggest they may exist at the centre of some very bright galaxies, and propose some observations to find them. This is based on what would happen if matter coming out of one side of the wormhole collided with matter that was falling in. The calculations show that the crash would result in a spectacular display of gamma rays that we could try to observe with telescopes.

This radiation could be the key to differentiating between a wormhole and a black hole, as they seem to be indistinguishable from the outside. Black holes should produce fewer gamma rays and eject them in a jet, while radiation produced via a wormhole would be confined to a giant sphere. Although the kind of wormhole considered in this study is traversable, it would not make for a pleasant trip, because it would be so close to the centre of an active galaxy that the high temperatures would burn everything to a crisp. But this wouldn’t be the case for all wormholes, such as those further from the galactic centre.

Potential of Wormholes

Wormholes are a popular subject among science fiction enthusiasts and theoretical physicists alike because such shortcuts would open up a universe of possibilities. We could travel to another galaxy in a human lifetime or explore the existence of parallel universes. They also allow the possibility of time travel. We could go back to the early days of our solar system’s formation and settle the debate over how our moon formed or solve the mystery of how the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way came to be, for starters.

Dark Side of Wormholes

However, opening even a single wormhole breaks the universe in fundamental ways, potentially creating time travel paradoxes and violating the causal structure of the universe. Even if we could prop a wormhole tunnel open with the gravity repelling abilities of exotic matter, other theorists, like Stephen Hawking, have suggested that once anything, even a single particle, enters a wormhole, mathematics requires that the wormhole collapses.

That does not bode well for intergalactic space and time travel . So for now, wormholes only exist in our imagination, and on paper in the form of equations.

Are Wormholes Real? ( 2019, March 12) https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/science/are-wormholes-real?utm_source=sciam&utm_campaign=sciam

2. Wormholes Explained- Breaking Spacetime (2018, August 12) Content and images 1, 2 and 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9P6rdqiybaw

3. Wormholes may be lurking in the universe — and new studies are proposing ways of finding them. (2021, January 14) Content and image 4.

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/science-technology/wormholes-may-be-lurking-in-the-universe-and-new-studies-are-proposing-ways-of-finding-them-75055

4. Wormhole Construction: Proceed with Caution. (1998, August 3)

https://physics.aps.org/story/v2/st7

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10 Non-Star Trek Series Directed By Jonathan Frakes

Star trek’s 10 greatest klingons, i don't care if modern star trek breaks established canon.

A classic episode of Star Trek saw the USS Enterprise encounter a mysterious phenomenon called a " Dark Star, " but it's actually a very familiar space phenomenon. One of Star Trek 's most famous time travel episodes , "Tomorrow Is Yesterday," saw the USS Enterprise stranded in the 1960s. This was because of an encounter with a mysterious phenomenon called a black star, described as an undetectable stellar object which exerts a tremendous gravitational force. Modern viewers understandably assume the black star is fictional, but in reality it's a very familiar force.

The black star described in "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" is actually a black hole. Albert Einstein first predicted the existence of these back in 1916, as part of his General Theory of Relativity. They remained purely theoretical for decades, and were referred to by a number of different names - including " black star, " which was a fairly common one. In 1967, the physicist John Wheeler (1911-2008) coined the term " black hole, " and it quickly caught on. Not quickly enough to turn up in "Tomorrow Is Yesterday," though, which aired that same year.

Related: Star Trek Confirms Voyager's Role In Janeway's New Ship

Star Trek's Black Star Was Scientifically Accurate - For Its Time

Most viewers focus on the pseudoscience of Star Trek , from dilithium to transporters. It's easy to forget, though, that many aspects of Star Trek 's science are based on real-world principles. The problem, though, is that Star Trek has been around for so long that the science has changed - because science is not static, but rather reflects a constant process of discovery. Black holes are no longer theoretical, because they have been observed due to their interaction with surrounding stellar material. The gas molecules in a black hole's accretion disc heat up as they swirl around it, releasing x-rays that can indeed be detected. But nobody had come up with that idea back in 1967, which is why the so-called " black star " in "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" is said to be impossible to spot.

Star Trek Isn't The Only Science-Fiction To Link Black Holes To Time Travel

Many science-fiction films and TV shows link black holes to time travel. In Doctor Who , for example, the Time Lords gained mastery of time and space when they managed to restrain the nucleus of an artificially-created black hole, naming this the " Eye of Harmony. " The Doctor was forced to find alternative ways to power his TARDIS after Gallifrey's destruction. Meanwhile, in Stargate SG-1 interaction between a black hole and an artificially-created wormhole has the potential to cause time travel as well. This is all theoretically possible, although physicists disagree about the precise mechanics.

Star Trek has used black holes many times since "Tomorrow Is Yesterday." One of the most interesting is in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called "Timescape," in which the USS Enterprise encountered a race of aliens who use the gravity wells of black holes as nests for their young. Captain Janeway and the USS Voyager had their own close encounter with a black hole in the episode "Parallax," in which they encountered temporal distortions. Star Trek clearly remains fascinated by the idea time travel and black holes are intimately connected.

Next: How Janeway's New Star Trek Ship Compares To Voyager

• SR Originals

The Prophets , also known as " wormhole aliens " (mainly by non- Bajorans ), were non-corporeal lifeforms that resided in the only stable wormhole known to exist, located in the Bajoran system . These lifeforms existed outside of linear time , and were simultaneously aware of the past , present , and the future . ( DS9 : " Emissary ", " Destiny ") The Prophets' origins remained unknown; however, they identified themselves as being "of Bajor " and were proven to possess exceptional abilities, such as giving the Bajorans glimpses of the future, that were written down in the form of prophecies that were later used to help them guide succeeding generations . ( DS9 : " Accession ", " The Reckoning ") Their only known vulnerability was to chroniton radiation . ( DS9 : " The Assignment ")

• 1 Origins and history
• 2 The Emissary
• 3 Celestial conflict
• 4 Revelation and conclusion
• 5 Individuals
• 6.1 Background information
• 6.2 Apocrypha

Origins and history [ ]

One of the orbs in its natural state

Bajoran history documented the discovery of nine orbs found in orbit of Bajor over a period of ten thousand years; however, it has been suggested from archaeological findings that the Bajorans received their first orb at least thirty thousand years ago. The orbs appeared to resemble hourglass-shaped energy fields and may have produced intense metaphysical hallucinations to those who came in contact with them; it is thought that the hallucinations were indirect communications from the Prophets. However, the orbs reacted to only a limited number of individuals. It continues to be a mystery as to what conditions were required for a vision to be experienced, and lapsed visions were a possible side effect (sometimes even months later). The ancient Bajorans who found the orbs named them according to the kind of vision they induced; many early encounters with them were recorded and, over time, became the basis of many ancient Bajoran prophecies. Those were ultimately responsible for the founding of the Bajoran faith, based on worshiping the Prophets as their gods.

The number of Prophets who resided in the wormhole has never been discovered. However, on several occasions, the Prophets exiled residents for committing acts described as evil . Those exiled Prophets became known as Pah-wraiths , with the Kosst Amojan the most prominent. Unlike the Prophets, those exiles appeared as red translucent energy and were often described to resemble flames from a fire. The Prophets created a prison for them on Bajor in an ancient cavern known as the Fire Caves . The Pah-wraiths also communicated to the ancient Bajorans through the orbs—an ancient text was written describing how to release them but was hidden over the centuries and later protected in modern times by the authorities. Around thirty thousand years ago, for reasons unknown, a Prophet and Pah-wraith were trapped inside a stone tablet under what was to become the city of B'hala . ( DS9 : " The Assignment ", " The Reckoning ", " The Changing Face of Evil ")

In their natural state, the Prophets appeared as blue translucent energy capable of rapid movement throughout any environment. When communicating with visitors in their own domain, the Prophets could appear as someone familiar to the visitors by probing their consciousness. For instance, when first encountered in "person" by Starfleet Commander Benjamin Sisko in 2369 , the Prophets appeared to take the form of people from his past and present—including his wife Jennifer Sisko ; son Jake Sisko ; Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his alter-ego Locutus of Borg , against whom Sisko had once fought; the Vulcan captain of the USS Saratoga , on which Sisko had served; Kai Opaka ; and others. In future encounters, Sisko saw other friends, colleagues, and enemies depicted by the Prophets as they spoke with him. ( DS9 : " Emissary ", " Accession ", " Rapture ", " Sacrifice of Angels ", " The Reckoning ", " Tears of the Prophets ")

With few exceptions, in normal space, the Prophets could physically communicate with outsiders only by possessing a body and using it as a vessel. The host was conscious of what was happening but had no control over its actions. The possessor had complete access to the host's memories and could convincingly act according to their personality, but apparently had no influence on the host's mind. ( DS9 : " The Assignment ", " The Reckoning ")

The Prophets had no sense of linear time, so they probably lived outside the normal space - time continuum; however, their existence was recorded on Bajor for at least thirty thousand years. ( DS9 : " Emissary ", " The Reckoning ")

The Emissary [ ]

Sisko explains linear time to the Prophets

In 2331 , a Prophet traveled to Earth and possessed the body of a Human named Sarah . As Sarah, the Prophet married Joseph Sisko and conceived a child. Shortly after giving birth, Sarah inexplicably abandoned her family and later died. It is thought that the Prophet visited Earth solely to ensure the birth of Benjamin Sisko . After doing so, it left Sarah's body, leaving her with a family that was not hers, so she left without explanation. It was no coincidence, then, that first contact by the United Federation of Planets was made by Starfleet officer Ben Sisko inside the wormhole in 2369 . The Bajoran people celebrated the event and named Sisko as the Emissary of the Prophets to Bajor. He took up a position commanding a joint Bajoran–Federation space station named Deep Space 9 at the mouth of the wormhole. ( DS9 : " Emissary ", " In the Hands of the Prophets ", " Image in the Sand ")

Benjamin Sisko initially was reluctant to accept such a prominent religious position in Bajoran society, but that changed in 2372 when the Prophets sent a 22nd century Bajoran, Akorem Laan , two hundred years into his future, where he was accepted by many Bajorans as being the true Emissary since he discovered the wormhole first. Akorem encouraged draconian reforms on Bajor that Captain Sisko knew would affect its membership application to the Federation. After experiencing a lapsed vision, Sisko realized the significant influence the Emissary had on Bajoran society, then challenging Akorem and taking him to the wormhole to ask the Prophets who was the true Emissary. The Prophets said Sisko was of Bajor and returned Akorem to his own time. The Prophets' intention was to make Sisko accept his position as their Emissary. ( DS9 : " Accession ") Three years later, in 2375 , Sisko discovered how the Prophets had arranged his birth. ( DS9 : " Image in the Sand ")

Celestial conflict [ ]

Keiko O'Brien, possessed by a Pah-wraith bent on destroying the Prophets

In 2373 , a Pah-wraith escaped the Fire Caves by possessing a member of an expedition team, Keiko O'Brien , who traveled to Deep Space 9 and planned to kill the Prophets before reentering the wormhole. The Pah-wraith failed and was killed when exposed to chroniton radiation . ( DS9 : " The Assignment ")

Late in 2373, Benjamin Sisko experienced a series of lapsed visions that led him to discover the ancient lost city of B'hala on Bajor. That incredible archaeological find was described by an ancient prophecy, eliminating any doubts from Bajoran hardliners that Sisko was the Emissary. The visions continued, and he was urged to delay Bajor's acceptance of admission into the Federation, which the Bajorans did without question. It was later realized that if Bajor had entered the Federation then, it would have been on the front line when the Dominion invaded the Federation the next year. ( DS9 : " Rapture ")

Kira Nerys, possessed by a Prophet during The Reckoning

Some time after the discovery of B'hala, archaeologists discovered an ancient tablet that had lain dormant for thirty thousand years. While examining it, Sisko experienced another vision and later was urged to smash the tablet, thereby releasing the imprisoned Prophet and Pah-wraith. The Pah-wraith was identified as "the Kosst Amojan " and possessed the body of Sisko's son, Jake , on Deep Space 9. The Prophet took the body of a Bajoran militia officer, Kira Nerys , and the two commenced what was prophesied as the Reckoning . A power struggle ensued, with the Kosst Amojan trying to kill the Prophets and return to the wormhole. Winn Adami , the Kai of Bajor, was shamed by the faith of Ben Sisko in that conflict, so she exposed the aliens to just enough chroniton radiation to force them to abandon the bodies they possessed. The Prophet returned to the wormhole, and the whereabouts of the Kosst Amojan went unknown. ( DS9 : " The Reckoning ")

Revelation and conclusion [ ]

Dukat releases the Pah-wraith

Upon becoming obsessed with killing Sisko and destroying Bajor, Gul Dukat (the former leader of the Occupation of Bajor ) studied ancient Bajoran prophecies to uncover a way to carry out that objective. He began to worship the Pah-wraiths and led a cult that believed them to be the true Prophets of the wormhole. He released a Pah-wraith trapped inside an ancient Bajoran artifact that the Cardassians had appropriated during the Occupation. The freed Pah-wraith used Dukat's body as a vessel and traveled to Deep Space 9, where it was exposed to an orb after attacking Starfleet officer Jadzia Dax, who later died of her injuries. Using the orb, the Pah-wraith entered the wormhole and sealed it, turning all known orbs in the Bajorans' possession dark and inactive. A major struggle erupted inside the wormhole between the two powers for its control. Believing he had failed the Prophets and the Bajoran people, Sisko returned to Earth to reevaluate his future. Some months later, while still there, he experienced a series of visions urging him to travel to the planet of Tyree . To confuse him, the Pah-wraith also sent him misleading visions. However, he discovered the tenth orb, which once opened had the power to expel and destroy the Pah-wraith, returning the wormhole to the Prophets' control. The Sarah Prophet appeared to Sisko and explained how he was conceived and why he was of Bajor. She said that he was conceived to fulfill many tasks that no one else could do. ( DS9 : " Tears of the Prophets ", " Image in the Sand ", " Shadows and Symbols ", " Covenant ")

Sisko releases the Prophet Sarah

In mid- 2375 , the Prophets warned Ben Sisko in a vision not to marry Kasidy Yates because the marriage would be short-lived. They did not reveal it at the time, but he would soon enter the Celestial Temple to join them; when he defied them and found Kasidy was pregnant a few weeks later, she feared the warning meant their child would die. ( DS9 : " Penumbra ", " 'Til Death Do Us Part ")

Sisko takes his place in the Celestial Temple

By the end of that year, Dukat manipulated Winn with the aid of visions sent to her by the Pah-wraiths. With her help, they studied the ancient text that was under the Vedek Assembly 's protection, known as the Book of the Kosst Amojan , which instructed them how to release all the imprisoned Pah-wraiths from the Fire Caves. Sisko completed the plans set out for him by the Prophets by destroying both Dukat and, having been warned by the repentant Kai Winn, the book of ancient text. All the Pah-wraiths remained imprisoned in the Fire Caves, whereas Sisko was taken into the wormhole to reside with his own people as a Prophet. However, he promised his wife and son that he would return one day. ( DS9 : " The Changing Face of Evil ", " What You Leave Behind ")

Individuals [ ]

• See : Unnamed Prophets

Appendices [ ]

Background information [ ].

The existence of the Prophets and Sisko's role as their emissary constituted Star Trek 's first significant venture into the realm of religion , a move that was somewhat controversial among mainstream Trek fans. As Deep Space Nine went on, and the Prophets learned more of linear time and the nature of the corporeal events going on around them, they became increasingly involved in corporeal existence, especially as it concerned "The Sisko". In the pilot episode, " Emissary ", for example, the Prophets appeared unconcerned and unfamiliar with corporeal existence. They were not encountered again for the duration of the first or second seasons , before finally reappearing in the third season episode " Prophet Motive ". They went on to appear once in season four (in " Accession ") and once in season five (in " Rapture "). Sending Akorem Laan into the future " for the Sisko " in " Accession " was their first major involvement in corporeal matters, an involvement which perhaps peaked in the sixth season episode " Sacrifice of Angels ", where they destroyed an entire fleet of Dominion ships. They went on to play a crucial role throughout the seventh season , especially in the series finale, " What You Leave Behind ".

Of the controversy surrounding the Prophets and Bajoran religion among fans of Trek who felt the show should stay away from religion, Michael Piller , speaking in 2002 , stated, " The Prophets and the prophecies and the orbs takes Star Trek into the metaphysical world for the first time. I think this is something Gene would have loved had he lived to see it. We are not changing the rules of the Star Trek universe, we're simply exploring the rules of another alien race, and what they consider important, and we're seeing how we as Humans in the 24th century might react to that, how we might learn from that. And I think that that was one of the things which Roddenberry loved about the new Star Trek , that instead of going out and teaching people, as I think the original Star Trek crew did, that this was really an era in which Humanity was out to learn, and I think that was the key to Deep Space Nine . We had a very, very good time exploring that, and I think that we were one of the very few television shows that ventured into spiritual and religious areas, and, of course, as long as time has existed, stories about spiritual pursuits, Bible stories have been great storytelling. And it gave us great themes to explore ." (Hidden File 10, DS9 Season 2 DVD special features)

As to the lack of frequency of their appearances, Ronald D. Moore commented: " The wormhole aliens/Prophets have to be used sparingly or they'll become too pedestrian. " ( AOL chat , 1997 )

Apocrypha [ ]

In the Millennium series, the crew discovers the existence of the third group of Prophets. This third group represented the alleged 'True' Prophets who resided in an initially-inactive red wormhole while those in the blue wormhole represent a splinter faction who broke away to explore the possibility of a world outside their realm. The Pah-wraiths were those who were banished from both groups and wished to reunite the Temples so they can destroy everything that those responsible for their exile have created.

The Prophets also played a small role in the final book of the Q Continuum trilogy. During the ancient battle between the allies of 0 and the Q Continuum , 0's ally Gorgan attempted to escape his opponent Q through the Bajoran wormhole , only to be denied entry by the Prophets. Ancient Bajorans observed the battle between the two incredible powers and sensed that they were neither the Prophets nor the Pah-wraiths.

The Prophets are witnessed in the future of the alternate reality created by Nero , when Q brings the USS Enterprise into their future in the storyline The Q Gambit , where all but one of the Prophets have been wiped out by the Pah-Wraiths, and the surviving Prophet is trapped in the tablet that was used for the Reckoning. In the course of their time in the future, the Prophet is released and possesses Spock , who realizes that the power of the Pah-Wraiths can be overcome if the Prophet possesses Q, elevating Q's power to an even further level.

In Star Trek: The Q Conflict , when Q draws the four captains together to act as champions for himself and other omnipotent races in a contest to decide the outcome of a conflict, one such challenge is to try and draw the Prophets out of the wormhole so that they will take part in the game. To this end, Picard and the USS Enterprise -E try to attract the prophets by sending a signal into the wormhole, Sisko tries to meditate to commune with the prophets, Kira (representing Captain Kathryn Janeway ) tries to communicate with them using one of the Orbs, and Kirk (on the advice of Jadzia Dax ) simply takes the Enterprise into the wormhole. The Prophets appear to him as Edith Keeler and Gary Mitchell before moving on to confront Q themselves, with the subsequent temporal distortions caused by the Prophets attacking Q being so extreme that the other Q are obliged to erase those events from history.

The Prophets make a few brief appearances in Star Trek Online . During the "Cardassian Struggle" story arc, the player recovers the "Orb of Possibilities" from a True Way ship, but upon bringing it to the Prophets, they reveal it is from the mirror universe . When the player returns the Orb to the mirror Bajor, the mirror Prophets thank them and send them home. Later, during the "2800" story arc, Deep Space 9 is overrun when the Jem'Hadar fleet that the Prophets seemingly destroyed in " Sacrifice of Angels " suddenly emerges from the Wormhole. The player has the option to consult the Prophets, who explain that they had to release the ships because "a hand that remains closed ceases to be a hand."

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A massive black hole may be 'waking up' in a nearby galaxy

The black hole's eating behavior shows how these colossal beasts grow.

In December of 2019, the sky-scanning Zwicky Transient Facility — a telescope perched on California's Palomar Mountain — alerted astronomers to a sudden flare coming from an otherwise unremarkable galaxy some 300 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo . The flare's intensity dipped and peaked dramatically over four years, but it continues to persist even today. That's unusually long for such a flare — so long, in fact, that it can't be explained by any typical cosmic phenomena.

"This behavior is unprecedented," Paula Sánchez-Sáez, an astronomer at the European Southern Observatory in Germany, who led the discovery, said in a statement . 

The researchers suspect we're witnessing a giant black hole lurking in the galaxy's heart as it wakes up from a deep slumber by feasting on surrounding gas. This gaseous material reaches scorching temperatures just before it falls into the cosmic abyss, creating light shows detectable by the Zwicky telescope. If that's really the case, this would be the first time we've spotted a black hole "switch on," Sánchez-Sáez and her colleagues announced on Tuesday (June 18).

A million times heavier than our sun, this black hole has been "sleeping" for at least the past two decades. The galaxy in which it resides, SDSS1335+0728, has been observed by astronomers for years, but a flare like the one sparked in 2019 "has never been observed before" in real-time, study co-author Lorena Hernández García, of the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics in Chile, said in the statement.

Related: At the heart of this distant galaxy lies not 1, but 2 jet-blasting black holes

After analyzing a combination of archival observations gathered by multiple telescopes before and after the 2019 event, the researchers found the galaxy is now radiating "much more light" across multiple wavelengths including ultraviolet, optical and infrared.  

It's possible the four-year-long flare is hinting that an ill-fated star once ventured too close to the black hole and became shredded, but even the slowest of black hole-induced stellar deaths last at most a few hundred days. Astronomers are still learning about various speeds with which black holes gobble nearby matter, which often defines how the black holes' host galaxies evolve over eons.

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— Cosmic Photos: Zwicky Transient Facility First Light

— Supernova algorithm classifies 1,000 dying stars without error

— Flashy 'dance' of two monster black holes captured by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope

The years-long flaring seen in SDSS1335+0728 is unlikely to be due to explosive events known as supernovas that occur when stars run out of fuel supply necessary for intrinsic nuclear fusion and die, which are known to last for days or a handful of months — leaving astronomers none the wiser about what sparked the mysterious glow.

"With the data we have at the moment, it's impossible to disentangle which of these scenarios is real," Sánchez-Sáez told The Guardian . "We need to keep monitoring the source."

A paper describing these findings has been accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Sharmila Kuthunur is a Seattle-based science journalist covering astronomy, astrophysics and space exploration. Follow her on X @skuthunur.

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A mysterious hole on Mars could be a jackpot of scientific discoveries, from extraterrestrial life to where astronauts could live

• Scientists have known about Mars holes for years but an old image has reignited interest. 
• These holes could contain evidence of alien life on Mars and be a shelter for future astronauts.
• But there are still many questions about how deep these holes are and where they lead.

In case you hadn't heard, there's a hole on Mars — multiple holes, actually. These holes, or pits, aren't news. Here's a photo of one from 2007:

However, an image taken by the HiRISE camera in 2022 recently resurfaced on the University of Arizona HiRISE's Picture of the Day , reigniting the conversation around these fascinating features.

Any excuse to talk about these holes is a good one because they remain largely mysterious and full of promise for future scientific missions .

What are those mysterious holes on Mars?

The holes, aka pits, are located on the flanks of ancient volcanoes in Mars's Tharsis region, the largest volcanic region on the red planet and home to some of the biggest volcanoes in our solar system.

As far as scientists can tell, Mars is no longer volcanically active . So there's no risk of these giant volcanoes erupting. But there is a possibility that residual underground lava tubes may still exist.

Scientists think these holes are "skylights," or places where the ground above the lava tubes has caved in and created a gaping hole in the surface, Brandon Johnson, a geophysicist at Purdue University who studies impact craters throughout the solar system, told Business Insider.

If these lava tubes are anything like Earth's, they could be the perfect place for astronauts to hunker down during their stay on Mars.

"There's more than one of these [pits] on Mars that we've seen," Johnson said. "But they're really interesting because they're places where astronauts might be able to go and be safe from radiation ."

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That said, it's unclear how deep these holes go or where they lead. We can only speculate from what we see on other planets, like our own.

"On the Earth, these lava tubes can be large enough to walk around in, but they can also be small or the voids can be discrete or discontinuous," Ross Beyer, a planetary scientist with the SETI Institute, told Business Insider over email. "So these pits we see could open into larger caves, or they could just be isolated pits."

Beyer added, "There's no way to know what's in them until we explore them in more detail."

Besides hypothetical human missions that may, or may not, happen anytime soon, there's a far more important reason to explore these holes further.

Is there life on Mars?

These holes could be one of the best places to search for evidence of extraterrestrial life on Mars because they may offer a protective, warm sanctuary from the planet's unforgiving surface.

For example, lava tubes on the moon can be as warm as 63 °F . That's plenty warm enough for life to arise inside. It's unclear if lava tubes on Mars would also be this warm — it's not a stretch to imagine, just a challenge to confirm.

Right now, the only information scientists know about these holes is what they can see from orbiting cameras in space. When it launched onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft in 2005, the HiRISE camera was the most powerful telescope to ever leave Earth's orbit and has since transformed our understanding of the red planet, snapping over 80,000 images. But it's still limited.

"Unfortunately, there is a limit to the 'angle' that we can get from orbit to look 'into' these pits. So sometimes we can see 'walls' and sometimes we can't," Beyer told BI.

The best way to explore below the surface would be to physically go inside by dispatching a rover to investigate the pit, Johnson said.

"There are missions proposed to essentially have a robot go on a line and drop down into one of these skylights and be able to explore what's inside of them," he said.

But to be clear, just because there could be life in these pits, doesn't mean Mars definitely hosts extraterrestrials.

"This is a good place to look, but we don't know if there's life on Mars at all," Johnson said.

In the meantime, to understand these mysterious holes as much as we can, "HiRISE and other Mars-orbiting spacecraft will certainly continue to take images of volcanic areas from orbit to try and characterize them better," Beyer said.

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