Page 66 of the Star Trek TNG: technical manual shows a compressed warp field foreward, while aft the field is stretched out.
Basically, it's the warping of space/time.
Page 66 of the Star Trek TNG: technical manual shows a compressed warp field foreward, while aft the field is stretched out.
Basically, an optical illusion.
@RikerGoogling on old servers there used to be a screen saver that was a snake, and the longer the snake was and the faster it moved the more work the server was doing. Same thing.