Warp drive

A warp drive is a spacecraft propulsion system (popular in Star Trek) where a spacecraft equipped with a warp drive may travel at speeds faster than light by many orders of magnitude. The spaceship does not actually travel but rather a high-energy warp core reactor is used to compress 4d spacetime in front of the ship, and decompress spacetime behind the ship, creating a warping of spacetime and the ship achieving a displacement to another point of the warped spacetime.

In contrast to other faster-than-light technologies such as a jump drive, the warp drive does not permit instantaneous travel between two points, but rather involves a measurable passage of time in an exponential scale called "warp factor" where a factor of 10 is theoretically possible but never reached. In contrast to hyperspace, spacecraft at warp velocity would continue to interact with objects in "normal space."

See also:

Warp Drive