How Fast Is Warp Speed Exactly?

Faster-than-light travel isn’t possible with current technology, and may not be possible at all. The speed of light, 300,000 kilometers per second, is thought to function as a sort of «cosmic speed limit.» Nothing with mass can travel at that speed or faster, with light being the exception since it has no weight. As Einstein proved, this simple rule holds the fabric of space and time together. So how does the warp drive in «Star Trek» circumvent this apparent law of nature?

As astrophysicist Erin MacDonald explained on the Star Trek YouTube channel, «Just because nothing can travel faster than the speed of light on the surface of space-time, nothing says that space-time itself can’t go faster than the speed of light.» But how does a warp engine use that loophole in the laws of physics to accomplish FTL travel? By generating a field of energy that warps the space-time around a starship. Said MacDonald, «The idea with warp drive is that you build a bubble of space-time around your ship and then that propels you faster than the speed of light.» These bubbles are called warp fields.

This is also how different warp factors can be achieved. A single warp field causes a starship to travel at warp 1, but adding an additional bubble around the first causes even more acceleration — warp 2, 3, and so on. «Eventually, you get to the point where you wrap all of space and time around your ship, and that, you can think of as warp factor 10,» MacDonald said.