Gravitational waves may reveal presence of warp drive starships

13 September 2024

Gravitational waves have been helping scientists and astronomers answer some of the big questions of the universe. But gravitational waves may be able to do something else: detect the presence of vessels with Star Trek like warp drive engines, as they move through the cosmos.

One problem with the warp drive space-time is that it doesn’t naturally give gravitational waves unless it starts or stops. Our idea was to study what would happen when a warp drive stopped, particularly in the case of something going wrong. Suppose the warp drive containment field collapsed (a staple storyline in sci-fi); presumably there would be an explosive release of both the exotic matter and gravitational waves. This is something we can, and did, simulate using numerical relativity.

I imagine a cloaking device wouldn’t be much help, if a vessel was trying to move about unnoticed. The gravitational waves generated by the ship’s warp drive would pretty much render it visible.