"Warp drives" used by super-advanced alien civilizations may create specific space-time ripples in their wake that we can spot from Earth, a new paper argues. However, the jury is still out on whether the faster-than-light technology is even possible to create in the first place.
In 1994, theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre proposed the first real-world version of the device, known as an Alcubierre drive. However, while the physics of Alcubierre's concept checks out, it requires the use of large amounts of"negative energy" — energy with a value below zero — which we currently have no idea how to create.
By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.In the new paper, uploaded June 4 to the preprint server arXiv, researchers argued that we could spot warp drives by looking for specific ripples in space-time, known as gravitational waves, given off by warp bubbles.