The title is unfortunately click-baity — as many are in astronomy and the sciences these days. This has nothing to do with faster-than-light (FTL) travel. It has to do with measuring the warp of the Milky Way due to dark matter. It helps explain why the Milky Way isn't just casting out stars it creates into the void. What is helping it stick together more or less cohesively over billions of years.<p>Note that there are traces of former galaxy collisions, and the warp is exacerbated by nearby Magellanic clouds.<p>It also gets into measuring the warp's rate of precession around the Milky Way by way of Cepheid variable stars.<p>The original paper published in Nature this article refers to is available here: <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-024-02309-5?utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=commission_junction&utm_campaign=CONR_PF018_ECOM_GL_PBOK_ALWYS_DEEPLINK&utm_content=textlink&utm_term=PID100052171&CJEVENT=d42ec7083e1211ef812917b10a1eba24" rel="nofollow">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-024-02309-5?utm_mediu...</a>