How Do ‘Star Trek’ Stardates Work?

On Star Trek, we hear a lot of “stardates,” meant to mark some futuristic date. An example is stardate 47457.1, which is Captain Picard’s birthday. The weird thing is that stardate 47457.1 is either the equivalent June 16th, November 4th, January 8th, or January 10th, depending on how you count. Let’s go deep-nerd on this.