Fasten Your Seatbells .. FAST ... it is Warp Drive

Warp drive is a FTL (faster-than-light) propulsion system used in many science fiction works. Fiction? No way, there is real science done with it. The physicist Jia Liu at New York University just proposed his idea for a spacecraft powered by dark matter in August this year. Spaceships as they are right now can't go very far, because they need fuel to actually come back, and this is quite limited in a spaceship's tank. Liu gives an example of an engine that uses the products of a dark matter annihilation.

The acceleration is proportional to the velocity, which makes the velocity increase exponentially with time in non-relativistic region. - Liu et al.

In a central black hole in the galactic center the density of dark matter can be that big enough to speed up a spaceship close to the speed of light.

Traveling the universe on the back of black holes (Image:George Marks/Kauko Helavuo/Stone/Getty)

If dark matter can move starships that would also be a great opportunity to finally have another source of alternative energy. Louis Crane published his ideas how to use an artificial black hole as a power source. Applying quantum gravity effects and things are not impossible anymore.

Very exciting times ahead. Just think about that dark matter is obviously abundant throughout the universe.

"A dark matter rocket would pick up its fuel en route," says Liu.

Again, nothing is impossible. We can reach the stars, because we have the physics to do it.