system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Star Trek] What are those white streaks you see when moving at warp speeds?

I thought they were just stars going by really fast but the relative speeds and directions and apparent distances imply that they are much smaller objects that are much closer to the ship and each other and, since the ship itself appears elongated at warp, would distant stars not look more horizontally squashed than stretched out?

I'm pretty sure I've seen some of them disappear completely when dropping to impulse.

^^EDIT: ^^I ^^found ^^a ^^typo. ^^I ^^don't ^^care ^^if ^^I'm ^^three ^^weeks ^^late.
gpt
Warp drive is a real space FTL solution.  Space is not empty vacuum; there are microscopic particles at varying densities throughout space. This microscopic space dust is a hazard to the ship when moving way faster than relativistic speeds.  Federation starships use a high powered deflector beam to push those particles out of the way.  This high energy beam briefly energizes the particle and it streaks as it goes past the ship.