What will the far future look like? For actor Will Smith and his son Jaden, the next generation could mark a "tipping point" for the environment. For futurist Ray Kurzweil, solar power is the solution to our energy ills. But for a look at the really far future, turn to Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of SpaceX and Tesla Motors. He's already thinking about spreading out from Earth to other planets — and engaging the warp drive to get to other star systems.

"There's some potential, even though it sounds science-fictiony, for warp drive to work," Musk said on Tuesday during a Google+ Hangout to publicize "After Earth," Smith's upcoming movie. "Technically, to warp space such that you're traveling at the speed of light, but you've warped space so that space is actually traveling."

Musk was referring to recent studies updating the "Star Trek" conception of warp travel, in which a whole region of the space-time continuum zips along at faster-than-light speeds. Researchers at NASA's Johnson Space Center say the idea isn't as crazy as it sounds, and they're trying to create space-time perturbations on a microscopic scale.

Even NASA Administrator Charles Bolden is on board: "One of these days, we want to get to warp speed," he said last September. "We want to go faster than the speed of light, and we don't want to stop at Mars."

Musk, however, sees Mars as a key stop on the path to turning humanity into a multiplanet species. "Either we're a spacefaring civilization, or we're going to be bound to Earth until some eventual extinction event," he said Tuesday.

All this meshes with the plot of "After Earth," in which Will and Jaden Smith play a father and son who find themselves back on Earth a millennium after cataclysmic events forced humanity to find refuge in a distant star system. The filmmakers organized the Hangout to give the Smiths as well as Musk, Kurzweil and environmentalist Alexandra Cousteau a chance to reflect on humanity's future. (It was also a chance to give the movie some publicity on the day "after Earth Day.")

You can watch the whole Hangout on YouTube, but here are some highlights:

Will Smith on working with his son on the movie: "It was wonderful for the two of us to become environmentally educated together. ... The huge question of water came up: the idea that today it's oil that we're willing to go to war over, and at some point in the future, it's going to be water."

Jaden Smith, 14, on the challenges facing the next generation: "Our world is going to get to a tipping point ... if we want to stop that, then my generation would have to almost become obsessed with it, and say we're stopping everything that we're doing wrong right now: no more plastic, only reusable sources, only solar power."

Alexandra Cousteau, granddaughter of Jacques-Yves Cousteau: "We're on the knife's edge of either protecting this place where we live, or losing an enormous amount of it. But I have to say I completely agree with Jaden, in that this generation has an extraordinary opportunity to use technology that we've never had before ... to actually take control of our use of resources."

Ray Kurzweil, Google's director of engineering, on the promise of solar power: "The total solar energy in the world is on an exponential rise. It's doubling every two years. ... Within 15 years we could meet all of our energy needs with solar. Solar is actually cost-comparative with other forms of energy like fossil fuels without any subsidies in different regions of the world."

More thoughts on the future: 

• Engineering's greatest challenge: our survival
• Take a test drive through the next century
• The biggest challenge for interstellar flight? Us

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Did Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe really capture photos of a UFO outside his office in Australia, passing over Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens? Or was it just a sailboat passing by?

In a series of Twitter updates, Crowe — who won the best-actor Oscar for his role in "Gladiator" and recently starred in another Oscar-nominated film, "Les Miserables" — insists that the pictures are real and that they don't show reflections or lens flare. What the YouTube video does show is a series of three timed-exposure photos, with a flat red light moving across the frame.

Crowe said the pictures were taken by a camera (a Canon 5D with no flash, to be precise) that was set up on the balcony of his office in the Sydney suburb of Woolloomooloo to capture pictures of fruit bats rising from the gardens. "This was a big surprise," Crowe wrote.

Some commenters quickly speculated that the UFO was nothing more than reflections from a light, perhaps from a beacon on a sailboat that was passing through nearby Woolloomooloo Bay. But Crowe defended the sighting: "The camera is on a balcony, not behind glass," he told one questioner. "Can't be a lens flare because it moves, camera is fixed," he said in another tweet.

Unless Crowe 'fesses up to a publicity stunt, or accepts one of the alternate explanations offered by skeptics, this sighting is likely to go into a big thick folder of unsolved celebrity UFO files. The conversation also rates a place among Crowe's most entertaining tweets. For what it's worth, here's another one from the Twitter files: "Due to a hangover of massive proportions ... anything I say on Leno tonight needs to be taken with a pinch of salt ... and a slice of lime."

I'll drink to that.

Update for 8 p.m. ET March 6: Facebook friend Tom Jorgenson came up with what seems to be the best explanation for the red light: It's reflected sunlight from a plane passing across the scene near sunset. You can make out what appears to be the outline of the plane's fuselage and tail. The exposure setting may have made the time-lapse pictures look more dramatic. To confirm that hypothesis, you'd have to check the time for the photo-taking session (at sunset) and the orientation of the camera (pointing to reflect the sun's rays into the camera lens). But I think we have a winner. What do you think?

Update for 12:13 a.m. ET March 7: OK, here's a much better explanation. ParaBreakdown's Phil Poling shows why Russell Crowe's UFO is most likely to be a series of long-exposure photos of an Unidentified Floating Object ... which now appears to have been identified. The YouTube video below breaks it down:

More from Cosmic Log's UFO files:

• Exploding UFO looks like weather balloon
• Middle East UFO linked to Russian missile test
• Cosmic Log archive on UFOs

Tip o' the Log to Huffington Post UK for the ParaBreakdown video.

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

This story was originally published on Wed Mar 6, 2013 5:52 PM EST

Vulcan and Cerberus (or Kerberos) emerged as the people's choices for naming Pluto's tiniest moons in the SETI Institute's "Pluto Rocks" contest, which ended on Monday. But in the course of running the contest, the organizers fielded 30,000 write-in suggestions — and you may well see some of those suggestions surface in the future.

"I've been delighted by the response," said Mark Showalter, a planetary scientist at the SETI Institute who played a leading role in the discovery of Pluto's fourth and fifth moons. Showalter was the point person for the moon-naming contest, which drew more than 450,000 online votes over the past two weeks.

More than 20 names were on the ballot, including Vulcan (the Roman god of fire) and Cerberus (the watchdog of the underworld). Vulcan was added to the list after the contest started, at the urging of "Star Trek" actor William Shatner, and grabbed the lion's share of the votes. But there were scads of other suggestions that weren't used, mostly because they weren't in line with the International Astronomical Union's tradition that the moons of Pluto should be named after figures from Greek or Roman mythology with some sort of connection to the underworld. Pluto was himself the mythological god of the underworld.

It's the IAU that has the final say over the names for the moons, which were discovered over the past couple of years and are now known merely as P4 and P5. Now that the crowdsourcing contest is over, Showalter willl be meeting with his colleagues on the discovery team and discussing whether to go with Vulcan and Cerberus or some other names. The names selected by the discoverers will then be considered by IAU committee members for adoption or reconsideration.

"It could take one to two months for the final names of P4 and P5 to be selected and approved," Showalter said on the "Pluto Rocks" website. "Stay tuned."

M. Buie / SwRI / NASA / ESA

These two pictures of Pluto represent the Hubble Space Telescope's most detailed view of the dwarf planet, but pictures from NASA's New Horizons probe should provide better resolution.

During a Google+ Hangout, Showalter mentioned the two most frequently suggested names that were left off the ballot. No surprise there: Considering that Pluto is a Disney cartoon character as well as a dwarf planet, you'd expect that Mickey and Minnie (as in Walt Disney's talking mice) would be the favorites.

"Yes, I am a big fan of Disney myself, but no, they are not compliant names," Showalter said. Although Mickey and Minnie make a cuter couple than Orpheus and Eurydice, they're not Greek or Roman mythological characters connected with the underworld.

Some of the other names, however, may come up again. When NASA's New Horizons probe sails past Pluto in 2015, still more mini-moons might be spotted. P6, P7 and so on would provide additional opportunities for the "compliant names" on Showalter's newly expanded list. And that's not all: New Horizons' camera could to snap pictures of previously unseen features on Pluto and its moons, That opens up a new frontier for names.

The names of planetary features don't have to follow the rules about Greek or Roman mythology: On Mercury, for example, craters are named after famous writers and artists. The hydrocarbon lakes detected on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, are named after the earthly lakes they resemble. Titan's mountains are named after the fictional mountains from "The Lord of the Rings" and other works by J.R.R. Tolkien, while the Saturnian moon's dark plains are named after planets from the "Dune" science-fiction series.

For Pluto and its moons, "we have all kinds of options," Showalter said. He noted that the naming suggestions followed some potentially appealing trends — specifically, Norse mythological figures as well as characters and locations from the "Star Wars" movie series and H.P. Lovecraft's fantasy and horror tales. Might we hear about Mount Loki, the Hoth ice sheet or Cthulhu Crater in the years to come? Will some scientist pick up on the Vulcan connection and start naming the hills of a Plutonian moon after Worf, Quark, Chakotay and T'Pol? To paraphrase another character from the "Star Trek" saga: "Make it so!"

More about planetary names:

• Uwingo aims to create Baby Planet Name Book
• How about better names for alien planets?
• Solar system's not changing — just the lingo

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Warner Bros. Pictures / MGM

Simulation software that helped filmmakers create the character Gollum's skin for "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" is one of the technologies recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The goal of every movie is for the audience to suspend its collective disbelief and become immersed in the world created on screen. With special effects breakthroughs continuing to raise the bar for movie audiences, the technical folks behind the scenes are convening on Saturday to celebrate the science and engineering advances in moviemaking.

Audiences know that Daniel Day-Lewis is not really Abraham Lincoln and that Anne Hathaway is not Fantine, but when they watched "Lincoln" or "Les Miserables," they believed. Those kinds of accomplishments are traditionally honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at a ceremony held a couple of weeks before the televised Oscar extravaganza.

Saturday's Scientific and Technical Achievement awards ceremony will be at the Beverly Hills Hotel, co-hosted by Zoe Saldana and Chris Pine, who both starred in 2009's "Star Trek" reboot. Nine science and technological awards will honor a total of 25 innovators whose hardware and software have changed the process of moviemaking.

Numerous award winners spoke to Inside Science to explain the science, engineering, and mathematical tools behind the latest special-effects wonders:

Visual effects: Feathers and smoke
Even though Natalie Portman has tremendous acting ability, it was screen science that helped her sprout feathers during her final transformation from a woman to a swan in the 2010 film "Black Swan."

"The team at Look FX had been working for weeks trying to make it work," said Ross Shain, chief marketing officer at Imagineer Systems Ltd. "The end result had to show the effect starting on her back, neck and shoulders with the camera panning close up."

Imagineer Systems Ltd.

Mocha Planar Tracking Software helped Natalie Portman sprout feathers in the 2010 film "Black Swan."

With lots of camera movement and very few points to digitally attach feathers to Portman's arm, Look FX had tried all the tools it had, but nothing worked. So the team tried the Mocha planar and tracking software, which was created to solve common technical problems and save time for visual-effects artists, editors, animators and colorists.

Developed by a team including Shain and fellow award winners Philip McLauchlan, Allan Jaenicke, and John-Paul Smith, the software essentially tracks the movement of each on-screen digital picture element, or pixel, during a scene. This allows an artist to have more control over the final look and movement of a visual effect. Almost instantly, Mocha allowed artists to take the image of swan skin and feathers that they had created, attach it to Portman's arm, integrated the image into her skin.

"This allowed the reveal to happen," said Shain. "The result blew people away." 

Audiences are often blown away by large fiery explosions or billowing clouds of smoke.

Theodore Kim / UCSB

A still image shows how Wavelet Turbulence software can create wisps of virtual smoke that can take on any desired shape.

In the 2011 film "Hugo," as Hugo Cabret runs through the clock tower trying to escape the train station inspector, it was Theodore Kim — a computer scientist at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and fellow award winners Nils Thuerey, Markus Gross and Doug James — who created the wisps of smoke that provided an extra cloak of invisibility. The Wavelet Turbulence software makes it easier for artists to control the final look of smoke clouds and fiery flames on screen.

"While this work is highly technical, its ultimate goal is an aesthetic one," said Kim. "When many people think of math and science, the perception is often that it leaves no room for creativity or intuition. However, both played a tremendous role in the design and implementation of this software and in turn it aids others in their own creative work." 

CG skin and movement
Bringing to life a computer-generated character like Gollum from the 2012 film "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" was a unique challenge, because part of what made him appear so lifelike had to do with his skin and his movements. To make this work, a team of artists and scientists from Weta Digital, including award winners Simon Clutterbuck, Richard Dorling and James Jacobs, developed an approach they call "Tissue: A Physically-Based Character Simulation Framework."

"The framework is used to construct and simulate the anatomical components of our digital creatures and characters," said Jacobs, a supervisor for creature special-effects.

With a similar goal in mind, a group at Centropolis FX, including awardees J.P. Lewis, Nickson Fong and Matt Cordner, created the pose space deformation, or "PSD," technique.

"PSD is an artist-friendly way to fix basic skinning problems with animation," said Cordner, an FX artist at Blizzard Entertainment.  "It is an integral component of Weta's tissue framework."

PSD helps an artist pose a computer-generated arm into a specific position, such as an arm flexed making a muscle. The artist can fix the skin's surface and save the settings for the skin's surface for that specific poise. After the skin is fixed on all the poses in a scene, PSD will incorporate all of that information so that as the arm moves from flexed to relaxed, to help make the skin look more realistic.

Lighting: From a scene to city
In the 2001 animated film, "Shrek," creating a rose-colored sunset was part art and part science for the team who worked at PDI/Dreamworks, including Daniel Wexler, Lawrence Kesteloot and Drew Olbrich.

DreamWorks Animation

A screenshot shows the Light system at work.

"We made a tool for artists to help them achieve new levels of creativity," said Wexler, now a chief executive officer at The11ers. "Lighters tell a story with light, and since a lighter's time is more valuable than a computer's time, we developed the Light system."

The Light system combines lighting and rendering into one tool. Lighting is when the artist adds light to the scene, such as an illuminated desk lamp. Rendering generates the entire scene by forming an image that combines the lamp's light, the wood grain on the desk and the color of the wall. This allows the lighter to see what the light looks like in the scene.

"Instead of having to wait hours between making a change to a scene and being able to view it, the artist is able to see changes in lighting in real time," said Wexler.

More from Inside Science: Oscar sci-tech trivia

Focusing on the lights in one room is one thing, but trying to light up five blocks of the New York City skyline is another. For Steve LaVietes, Brian Hall and Jeremy Selan at Sony Pictures Imageworks, creating Katana, a computer graphics scene management and lighting software, was a way to overcome the common problem of using up all of the computer's memory to generate large, complicated scenes.

"Katana is specialized for large-scale film production where there is lots of data or lots of team members involved," said LaVietes, a pipeline architect.  He develops the software process that moves data between departments for final movie frame delivery. "The way Katana works, if I make a change to a scene, I only save that change, and you would see a flowchart of all the changes to this scene."

For example, an artist can produce a set of instructions for how the light will look streaming from an apartment window at night. Then, if the artist decides to make that one window and entire apartment building the length of an entire city block, Katana can apply the same light instructions over a much larger environment.

Getting the lighting just right, making the characters appear lifelike and creating visual effects that take an audience's breath away is the goal of these Oscar award-wining screen scientists and ingenious engineers. When they do their job well, the audience doesn't even notice their work.

More about movie tech:

• Rock Center: 'Hobbit' director reveals secrets
• 'Hunger Games' fire show is Hollywood magic
• Get your fill of fun facts about the Oscars

Emilie Lorditch is an editor and writer for Inside Science TV.

This report was originally published by Inside Science News Service as "Oscar Sci-Tech Awards Honor Ingenious Screen Science and Engineering." Copyright 2013 American Institute of Physics. Republished with permission.