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Throughout Star Wars, references are made to "hyperdrives", "hyperspace", and "lightspeed". It seems nearly all spacecraft are equipped with hyperdrives, and are, as such, capable of making the jump. But how fast is that?

Assuming the Galaxy far, far away is roughly the size of the Milky Way, traveling between two planets on opposite sides would mean crossing roughly 100,000 light years, which takes light 100,000 years. That seems a bit long for a trip. Is there any canon information stating roughly how fast you can travel with a hyperdrive? Maybe the distance between two planets/moons and how long the trip took?

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    Let's face it: Star Trek = Real Science and Star Wars = Fake Science. This is the true essence of the decades-long battle between the two factions of fans. And the reason Trekkies are geeks while Star Wars fans (they don't even have a kewl name...) are just dorks. The Millenium Falcon made the Kessel Run in less than 12 PARSECS. 'nuff said.
    – Johnny Bones
    Commented Dec 30, 2016 at 19:04
  • @JohnnyBones but Hyperspace is star trek's Slipstream and/or transwarp and a hundred other sci-fi methods of travel. And the Parsec thing is easy to explain. He took a dangerous shortcut. Judging a path by distance is just as valid as judging it by time it takes to navigate.
    – cde
    Commented Dec 30, 2016 at 19:54
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    @JohnnyBones You're welcome to your opinions on which is better, personally I like them both but your comment glosses over the reality that Trek is just as happy to make crap up, so calling Star Trek "real science" is a bit much.
    – Catija
    Commented Dec 30, 2016 at 19:55
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    @cde - Ah, yes. The old "shortcut" excuse. But, you see, Solo was responding to a question about the Falcon's speed. ;o) Of course, my whole comment was just having a bit of fun, but there's also an element of truth in it. Roddenberry invented the cell phone, tablets and video conferencing, just to name a few things. Lucas has given us...?
    – Johnny Bones
    Commented Dec 30, 2016 at 20:23
  • @JohnnyBones speed is required to safely and successfully avoid being pulled into a mass shadow. A gravity slingshot doesn't work well if you go in at the wrong speed or angle.
    – cde
    Commented Dec 30, 2016 at 20:42

3 Answers 3

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There is a severe lack of technical data on Hyperspace travel in the Canon Star Wars universe. Even the expanded old canon isn't that detailed on it. Too busy focusing on space sword fights I guess. As noted on Wiki though:

In any case, hyperspace is an extremely fast method of travel, as Obi-Wan and Luke Skywalker's journey from Tatooine to Alderaan is theorized to have only taken two days maximum, whereas these two planets are separated by half a galaxy or more. Darth Maul took approximately seven hours to travel from Coruscant to Tatooine.

enter image description here

As seen on this map (click to enlarge), Coruscant is 9/10,K/L, and Tatooine is 16,R. A quarter of the galaxy in hours. The U.S.S. Voyager (Star Trek, more realistic) took years for a similar path using multiple tricks.

Of course, Hyperspace isn't a direct/linear travel path, and most travel through it goes through pre-charted travel lanes due to the danger. Some travel, though shorter distances in real space, take much longer because you have to navigate around hyperspace hazards. Like driving around a bad neighborhood.

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    omg, I would love to have a high def version of this map so I can more easily make out all the names
    – DForck42
    Commented Dec 30, 2016 at 14:21
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    @DForck42 click on it for higher res. Or Google image search for star wars galaxy map.
    – cde
    Commented Dec 30, 2016 at 18:00
  • That's one tiny-ass galaxy though...
    – DukeZhou
    Commented Dec 30, 2016 at 18:58
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    @DukeZhou More like very few notable planets and moons. It makes sense that intelligent life forms are few and far in between, so while there could well be billions of planets in the galaxy, only these few are significant enough to make the map
    – TheEnvironmentalist
    Commented Dec 30, 2016 at 22:07
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    @DForck42 here is your hi-res (or better res) map: i.imgur.com/hNhJaqc.jpg (3000x4100). And DukeZhou maybe that only shows planets that have been mapped/discovered? It could be larger than the milky way. This is evident by the left hand side, as it is a large 1/2 of the galaxy unknown regions, i.e. not mapped. For instance, find Mandalore, and see the Mandalorian space bubble. In Clone Wars it is said that Mandalore is the main world for a number of worlds (that the Death Watch wanted to control after the Maul plot). So one can extrapolate that in that bubble there are many worlds. Thu
    – Mach Seven
    Commented Feb 28, 2020 at 0:57
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Poe uses the Millennium Falcon to make pre-plotted jumps between different star systems, a technique known as 'lightspeed skipping'.

The travel time is negligible, typically less than a second or two, to travel lightyears.

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    And yes, I know this is stupid and throws the entire canon out of the window. Don't blame me for their shitty writing.
    – Valorum
    Commented Jun 1 at 14:30
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There's NO present current metric to denote Hyperdrive speeds in Star Wars universe. Basic afix is several days to hours to traverse sections of the galaxy. In novelization for Star Wars: EP IV, Millennium falcon made it from Tatooine to Alderaan (56,000 light years) in 17 hours. That's with an extensive modified unit on custom starship. Standard ships probably take a few days. As a ship can only go as far as it's fuel range supports or supplies (Food, consumable oxygen)

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  • The novelisation does not say that. It says "Oh, this is pointless. What can I really learn on a ship in a few hours?”"
    – Valorum
    Commented Jun 3 at 6:51
  • It also does not give the distance. That needs to be extrapolated from maps like the one in the answer above.
    – Valorum
    Commented Jun 3 at 6:52

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