Can We Detect Warp Drives From Alien Civilizations?

A new paper proposes how current and future-generation gravitational wave observatories can detect warp drive signatures.

Massive spacecraft traveling through space. A new research paper proposes that we can use current and future-generation gravitational wave observatories to search for gravitational waves generated by traveling spacecraft. Source: Image by author, generated by Stable Diffusion.

In Star Trek, Starfleet is the exploratory and defensive force of the United Federation of Planets. Starfleet’s most important rule is the Prime Directive, which dictates that no Starfleet personnel should knowingly interfere with the natural progression of “pre-warp civilizations.” The warp drive is faster-than-light space travel technology, allowing users to traverse vast distances between stars in a short amount of time. Prep-warp civilizations have not yet invented the warp drive and thus are not deemed developed enough to join the Federation of Planets. So, members of the Federation keep themselves hidden from these pre-warp civilizations.

Could our Galaxy be home to a similar galactic club of aliens who have purposely hidden themselves from Earth? If so, are there ways we can detect signatures emitted by alien warp drives? A new study led by scientists at Applied Physics proposes a method of detecting the gravitational waves left behind by warp drive travel.

Although the concept of a warp drive was popularized by science fiction, some scientists believe it may be possible to create a real-life warp…