After a fraught moment of Darth Vader battling his way through Rebels trying to secure the Death Star plans, the Tantive IV makes an escape.

Cut to the famous opening scene of Star Wars (now known as ANH) and Vader’s Star Destroyer is bearing down on the Corvette.

This begs the question, how much time has passed between the ending of Rogue One and the beginning of A New Hope?

Was it minutes or hours?

Let’s take a step back.

Remember in Rogue One, Mon Mothma, and Bail Organa discuss a certain Jedi and their need for his help.

Organa implies he knew just the person to go get him from Tatooine.

Unfortunately, the timing did not go well, the Tantive IV was laid up in repairs, docked within the forward bay of Admiral Raddus’s flagship, the Profundity.

It thus accompanied Raddus’s fleet to Scarif, along for the ride as the Rebel flotilla engaged the Imperial defenders. As we know, the Tantive IV managed to get away with the plans.

Vader’s Devastator tracked the Tantive IV, though, through hyperspace, and follow it to Tatooine.

Dropping out of hyperspace, the Corvette could not keep the Imperial Star Destroyer at bay and was overtaken in a high-orbit gunfight, which visible at least to some residents of Tatooine below. In a cut scene from ANH hope, the young Luke Skywalker observes the fracas from the sands of Tattoine.

While we do not know the exact distance between the planets of Scarif to Tatooine the time between the two key moments of the escape and then capture, may have been one to several hours.