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"I wonder how many hours you and I spent hanging around up here."
"2,147. Just kidding. But it was a lot."

An hour was a unit of time, composed of minutes, that made up a fractional portion of a day.


The planet that Gul Dukat and Captain Benjamin Sisko were stranded on following the destruction of USS Honshu had an approximately 23 hour long day. From the latitude were the shuttle landed, the nights appeared to last eighteen hours and the days lasted less than five. (DS9: "Waltz")

On Earth and Earth Two, sixty minutes equaled one hour, and 24 hours equaled one day. (TNG: "Miri") Aboard the USS Enterprise, a day was measured in 24 hour cycles. (TOS: "Where No Man Has Gone Before", "The Naked Time", "Space Seed", "The Changeling", "Turnabout Intruder") The Earth hour was occasionally used as the determiner of hours in the Federation. Time kept aboard the USS Enterprise-D was measured in Earth hours. (TNG: "Lonely Among Us") Ferengi DaiMon Bok agreed to beam over to the Enterprise-D in "one Earth hour" in 2364. (TNG: "The Battle") The computer aboard the automated repair station gave the figure of 34.2 Earth hours for the time to completion of repairs to Enterprise NX-01 in 2153. (ENT: "Dead Stop")

Bajor, the Bajoran moon Jeraddo, and aboard Deep Space 9, a day was broken up into 26 hour cycles. (DS9: "A Man Alone", "Progress", "If Wishes Were Horses", "The Siege", "Necessary Evil", "Sanctuary", "The Wire", "Fascination", "To the Death", "Ties of Blood and Water", "Resurrection", "Afterimage", "It's Only a Paper Moon", "'Til Death Do Us Part")

Aside from Humans, the time increment of hours was used by the Betans, the Eminians, the Klingons, 892-IV natives, the Vulcans, the Iotians, the Kelvans, Arretan, the Zeons and Ekosians, the Tholians and the El Aurians. (TOS: "The Return of the Archons", "A Taste of Armageddon", "Errand of Mercy", "Bread and Circuses", "Journey to Babel", TOS: "A Piece of the Action", "By Any Other Name", "Return to Tomorrow", "Patterns of Force", "The Tholian Web"; Star Trek Generations) This was not true, however, of the Sigma Draconis VI natives, as Kara explained to Kirk, anyone who uses the Great Teacher possessed its knowledge for "three of your hours." (TOS: "Spock's Brain") Likewise, when Kirk forced Plasus into the mines of Ardana to show him the effects of exposure to zenite gas, the unconvinced Plasus saw no effects, claiming "I've been here nearly an hour of your Earth time. You and Vanna even longer. I see no changes in any of us!" (TOS: "The Cloud Minders") Even the the Romulan Tal gave Captain Kirk "one of your hours" to surrender the Enterprise. (TOS: "The Enterprise Incident")

In an alternate 1930, Edith Keeler offered Spock and James T. Kirk the wages of fifteen cents per hour for ten hours of work a day at the Twenty-First Street Mission. She later found them five hours work at twenty two cents per hour. (TOS: "The City on the Edge of Forever")

While coordinated their attack on the planet killer, Captain Kirk aboard the USS Constellation informed Spock aboard the Enterprise that he was plotting an intercept course, with an estimated rendezvous time of 1414.7 hours. (TOS: "The Doomsday Machine")

Solar hour

A solar hour was a unit of time made up of corresponding solar minutes.

The cosmic ray concentration of a solar flare encountered by the USS Enterprise in 2269 was scheduled to last 74.1 solar hours, however, when all indicators suggested there were 17 hours left to the storm, they were already 4 hours past the original time period the storm was to end. (TOS: "The Empath")

Later that year, during the Enterprise's return to the Kalandan outpost, Lieutenant Rahda reported that at warp 8.4 their estimated time of arrival was 11.5 solar hours, however, Spock corrected her, stating 11.337 hours, adding that "I wish you would be more precise." (TOS: "That Which Survives")

While speaking in code over an unsecured channel, monitored by Khan Noonien Singh, Spock informed Admiral Kirk that, "if we go by the book, like Lieutenant Saavik, hours could seem like days" as he relayed the repair timeline for the Enterprise. He relayed that "We won't have main power for six days. Auxiliary power has temporarily failed. Restoration may be possible in two days, the book, Admiral." When the code explained to Saavik, who saw it as Spock lying, he explained that he exaggerated, before Kirk revealed "Hours instead of days, Saavik, now we have minutes instead of hours." (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan)

Comparative duration

Non-comparative references

Radiation exposure of less than eight hundred millirads, for a period of a few hours, typically did not pose a risk for Humans or Vulcans. (ENT: "Terra Nova")

Doctor Phlox told Jamin that the examination of his mother Nadet aboard Enterprise would only last a few hours. Likewise, Phlox told Captain Archer that Lieutenant Malcolm Reed could stay untreated with his wound for a few hours in the gutting room of the Novans. (ENT: "Terra Nova")

In June of 2151, a landing party of Enterprise NX-01 was taken hostage by a commando of the Andorian Imperial Guard and stuck in a room with the Vulcan monks of the monastery at P'Jem for more than twelve hours. (ENT: "The Andorian Incident")

A chasm on the surface of Archer's Comet needed less than an hour to recrystallize when moving out of direct sunlight. (ENT: "Breaking the Ice")

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