Ton

A ton or metric ton was a unit of mass and occasionally of energy.

The metric ton was also a factor in figuring shear force, which was determined by calculating metric ton per meter.

Generically, the term "ton" can also mean a large, unspecified amount.

When it was learned that Enterprise NX-01 was going to investigate the Terra Nova colony in 2151, Travis Mayweather searched through the historical archives and found "tons of data", including crew manifests, survey photos, and weekly status reports. (ENT: "Terra Nova")

Korob, who presented a large quantity of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires, was told by the unimpressed James T. Kirk that "[w]e could manufacture a ton of these on our ship. They mean nothing to us." (TOS: "Catspaw")

Comparative list of measurements[]

Units of mass[]

Ton = 2,000 pounds or 1,000 kilograms

• Vic Fontaine, who was working on his books, explained to Nog that if he didn't get them straightened out, "Uncle Sam's going to come down on me like a ton of bricks." (DS9: "It's Only a Paper Moon")

• A Rectyne monopod could weigh as much as 2 tons. (TNG: "The Icarus Factor")

• A humpback whale consumed "2 tons of shrimp per day." (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)

• In 2268, Mister Lurry of Deep Space Station K-7 issued a priority 1 distress call that was answered by the USS Enterprise for the protection of a couple of tons upward to several tons of quadrotriticale stored aboard the station, on hold for Sherman's Planet. (TOS: "The Trouble with Tribbles")

• The advanced long-range torpedoes housing Khan Noonien Singh's followers was described as a "4 ton stick of dynamite". (Star Trek Into Darkness)

• The captain's yacht of the USS Enterprise-E carried 7 tons of ultritium explosives in 2375 (Star Trek: Insurrection).

• Following the transfer of Keiko O'Brien's pregnancy to Kira Nerys, O'Brien claimed that she felt like she had been hit by a 10 ton rock. (DS9: "Body Parts")

• A single humpback whale had a mass of "about 40 tons." (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)

• Captain Kathryn Janeway claimed that the shuttle confiscated by a Numiri patrol vessel was loaded with 40 tons of thalmerite explosives, enough to destroy the Numiri's ship. (VOY: "Ex Post Facto")

• Vosk demanded 86 tons of aluminum plating and 170 tons of carbon steel from his Nazi allies. (ENT: "Storm Front")

• When the humpback whales George and Gracie were beamed aboard, Montgomery Scott calculated that they, along with their surrounding water, would weight 400 tons, a number James T. Kirk hadn't considered. (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)

• Two Bolian freighters carried several thousand tons of selenium and rhodium nitrite when they disappeared near the Badlands in 2373. (DS9: "For the Uniform")

• The Ferengi market price of 2,000 tons of Kohlanese barley was 182 bars of gold-pressed latinum in 2371. (DS9: "Prophet Motive")

• A screech rhino could easily weigh 3,000 tons. (DS9: "Second Skin")

• Terok Nor processed about 20,000 tons of uridium each day. (DS9: "Civil Defense")

• In the Julian Bashir, Secret Agent holoprogram, Hippocrates Noah's plan for world domination involves releasing "millions of tons" of lava, that would cause Earth's tectonic plates to subside. This would result in the planet's continents to be flooded by the oceans, save for his own personal refuge atop Mount Everest. (DS9: "Our Man Bashir")

• The mass of Miri, which coincided with the mass of Earth, was measured by the USS Enterprise at 6x10^21st tons. (TOS: "Miri")

Metric ton = 1,000 kilograms

• A cubic centimeter of a dark matter asteroid captured by the USS Discovery in 2257 was estimated to weigh 1.5 metric tons. (DIS: "New Eden")

• The cave-in caused in the caverns by the Son'a on the Ba'ku planet had almost 4 metric tons of rock blocking the entryway. (Star Trek: Insurrection)

• Prior to its destruction, the Bok'Nor delivered 14 metric tons of golside ore to the Regulon system. (DS9: "The Maquis, Part I")

• Fort Knox stored over 50 metric tons of gold prior to the 22nd century. (VOY: "Dark Frontier")

• Vosk handed his German General several requisition forms for numerous valuable supplies, including 86 metric tons of aluminum plating and 170 tons of carbon steel. (ENT: "Storm Front")

• The Ares IV had a mass of 92 metric tons. (VOY: "One Small Step")

• The Vidiian asteroid discovered by Voyager contained "anywhere from 500 to 1,000 metric tons of dilithium. (VOY: "Phage")

• Balok's pilot vessel had a mass of "about 2,000 metric tons." (TOS: "The Corbomite Maneuver")

• The Quarren facility was capable of producing 8,000 metric tons of tylium per second at 94% thermal efficiency. (VOY: "Workforce")

• Balok's cube had a "mass, a little under 11,000 metric tons." (TOS: "The Corbomite Maneuver")

• An Intrepid-class starship has a mass of 700,000 metric tons. (VOY: "Phage", "Relativity")

• The Tellarite freighter Tezra "could haul 1 million metric tons at warp 4.5." (ENT: "Bounty")

• The inertial mass of the moon had decreased to approximately 2.5 million metric tons. (TNG: "Deja Q")

• A Borg scout ship had a mass of 2.5 million metric tons. (TNG: "I Borg")

• Penk's starship had a mass of 5 million metric tons. (VOY: "Tsunkatse")

Kiloton = 1 thousand tons

• In 2373, Voyager discovered a gallicite vein with "a yield of nearly a kiloton; enough to completely refit the ship's warp coils." (VOY: "Blood Fever")

• The USS Equinox had a 2 kiloton supply of kemacite ore. (VOY: "Equinox")

• The Xepolite Free Trader commanded by Drofo Awa claimed to have 5 kilotons of Regreein wheat husks in his cargo hold. (DS9: "The Maquis, Part II")

• Voyager retrieved 8 kilotons of debris from the Borg probe, mostly fragments of its hull. (VOY: "Dark Frontier")

• A Y class freighter can haul at least 20 kilotons. (ENT: "Fortunate Son")

• A J class freighter can haul at least 30 kilotons. (ENT: "Horizon")

Gigaton = 1 billion tons

• When Saowin attempted to repay Kurros and the Think Tank for their aide, he explained he was unable to repay the amount of bernicium that was requested for their transaction due to the fact that their mines were destroyed in the last series of quakes, and the ore in question was buried under 60 gigatons of rock. (VOY: "Think Tank")

Isoton

• See: Isoton

Units of energy []

A ton was also a way of indicating the energy released by an explosion of one metric ton of TNT - 4.184 gigajoules. In the 20th century nuclear weapons were graded in megatons – by the millions of megagrams of TNT they equaled.

• 250 tons was the yield of the thermokinetic explosion produced by Romulan tricobalt mines used in the 22nd century. (ENT: "Minefield")

• One of the lyrics to the song "I Hate You" referred to the question, "The only choice we're given is how many megatons?" (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)

• A fusion explosion of 97.835 megatons would result if the impulse engine of a Constitution-class starship was overloaded. (TOS: "The Doomsday Machine")

• See: Isoton

External links[]

• Ton at Wikipedia
• Metric ton at Wikipedia
• Short ton at Wikipedia
• TNT equivalent at Wikipedia