Bajoran wormhole

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The Bajoran wormhole opens

In the fictional Star Trek universe, the Bajoran wormhole is a wormhole located near the planet Bajor. The Bajoran religion refers to the wormhole as the "Celestial Temple". It appears as an aperture of swirling golden light surrounded by blue clouds, which appears when a vessel approaches and disappears when the vessel enters it; it also appears when discharging a vessel. The wormhole can only be traversed by ships traveling at impulse (sub-light speed) velocities.

The wormhole is discovered in the first episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It is found to lead from the Bajor-B'Hava'el system in the Alpha Quadrant to the Idran system in the Gamma Quadrant, seventy thousand light-years away and on the other side of the galaxy. Due to the strategic importance of such a phenomenon, the Deep Space Nine space station is moved out of Bajor's orbit and repositioned near the wormhole.

Starfleet Commander Benjamin Sisko and Lieutenant Jadzia Dax are the first to make contact with the wormhole and its creators, non-corporeal beings known as the Prophets in Bajoran religion; they are simply referred to as "Wormhole Aliens" by the Federation. It is they who provided the Orb-like energy artifacts, or "Tears of the Prophets", to the Bajorans; these artifacts are the basis of Bajoran religion.

The wormhole becomes a point of conflict throughout the series, since it permits travel between the Alpha Quadrant and the Gamma Quadrant controlled by the Dominion, a belligerent organization not unlike a sinister version of the Federation. Neither the Dominion nor the major powers of the Alpha Quadrant wish the other to gain a foothold in their quadrant which makes controlling the mouth of the wormhole extremely important.

The wormhole closes at one point, as a result of one of the Tears of the Prophets being destroyed by the Pah Wraiths. It is later restored by the discovery of an additional orb by Benjamin Sisko.

It is described as a "verteron tunneling phenomenon", with the surrounding particles being "verteron energy fields" (Verterons are a notional sub-atomic particle).

An attempt to create an artificial wormhole by the Trill scientist Lenara Kahn is briefly successful, but the new wormhole collapses after a fraction of a second.