Detta förklaras i originalskriptet och novelisation;
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Det var ett ganska ovanligt stjärnsystem till att börja med. Ceti Alpha V och Ceti Alpha VI roterar runt varandra i en gemensam omloppsbana. En viss instabilitet skulle förväntas.
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Chocken av Ceti Alpha VI exploderade flyttade huvudplaneten ur anpassning så att diagrammen skulle vara felaktiga under alla omständigheter (se nedan)
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För att förhindra att Khan släpptes släpptes planetplanerna medvetet .
KHAN: This is Ceti Alpha V ! Ceti Alpha VI exploded six months after we were left here. The shock shifted the orbit of this planet and everything was laid waste. Admiral Kirk never bothered to check on our progress. It was only the fact of my genetically engineered intellect that enabled us to survive!
On earth, two hundred years ago, I was a prince, with power over millions -- now, like Prometheus I have been left by Admiral Kirk to digest my own entrails. - Movie Script
och
"You lie!" Chekov shouted. "I saw the world we left you on! It was beautiful; it was like a garden—flowers, fruit trees, streams … and its moon!" Chekov remembered the moon most clearly, an enormous silver globe hanging over the land, ten times the size of the moon on Earth, for Captain Kirk had left Khan and his followers on one of a pair of worlds, a twin system in which planet and satellite were of a size. But one was living, the other lifeless.
"Yes," Khan said, in a rough whisper. "Alpha Ceti V was that, for a while."
Chekov gasped. "Alpha Ceti V !" The name came back, and all the pieces fell into place: no official records, for fear Khan Singh would free himself again; the discrepancies between the probe records and the data Reliant collected. Now, too late, Chekov understood why he had lived the last few days under an increasing pall of dread. - Star Trek II: The Official Novelisation