New designs of NASA's Star Trek-style spacecraft unveiled

An artist collaborating with a NASA scientist has unveiled new designs of a Star Trek-style 'faster-than-light' space ship that could make interstellar travel a reality.

In 2012, NASA physicist Dr Harold White had announced that he was working on a faster-than-light ship at NASA's Johnson Space Center.

White has now collaborated with artist Mark Rademaker to create a realistic design of what such a warp drive spacecraft might actually look like.

Warp drive is a hypothetical faster-than-light (FTL) propulsion system in many works, most notably Star Trek.

A spacecraft equipped with a warp drive may travel at apparent speeds greater than that of light by many orders of magnitude.

It would allow faster-than-light travel by bending the space around it, making distances shorter.

At the local level, however, the spaceship wouldn't be moving faster than light, 'Gizmodo' reported.

Rademaker told io9 that he worked with White to create the new model, dubbed IXS Enterprise, which includes a sleek ship nestled at the centre of two enormous rings, which create the warp bubble.

If their work is successful, White said they would be able to create an engine that will get us to Alpha Centauri "in two weeks as measured by clocks here on Earth."

Alpha Centauri is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Centaurus and located 4.367 light years from Earth.