Wormhole effect

The wormhole effect was a time distortion which affects people inside a wormhole created by a starship because of antimatter imbalance of the engine.

In the mid-2270s, Captain James T. Kirk ordered Lieutenant Commander Hikaru Sulu to take the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) into warp while in the confines of the Sol system to intercept V'Ger at the earliest opportunity. His first officer, Commander Willard Decker and chief engineer Commander Montgomery Scott opposed Kirk's order, but Kirk had Sulu take the Enterprise to warp anyway. The Enterprise later became caught in a wormhole, communications with Starfleet Command were jammed, distortion overloaded the power systems, navigational deflectors went inoperative, and the entire crew underwent the "wormhole effect".

The crew was able to free themselves from the wormhole effect after Decker ordered Lieutenant Pavel Chekov to fire a photon torpedo at an asteroid also caught inside the wormhole.