Stuff like this keeps me awake at night

[Zippyy]

This kind of stuff freaks me out.  Betelgeuse isn't a threat, but there are plenty of other cosmic things that might be, and we'd never know it until too late.
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Betelgeuse may not be a threat, but we can't ignore the swarms of Africanized Killer Comets. These comets are larger than normal comets, and have powerful wings. They fly faster than a speeding bullet (60 in a 35!) and are on a path from Sigma 9-5-7 that will bring them to the west coast of Earth in two years.

Global disaster stories grab people's attention. It really can be scary, but I comfort myself with statistics.

The Dinopeople were wiped out 65 million years ago, most likely by a meteorite. As far as I know, that wasn't even a global disaster since the Dinopeople never spread to another continent (had Pangaea even broken up yet?). I'm clearly working with vague memories and could be wrong about anything!

Anyhow, that seems to give us either 65M or 4.7B years with no global disaster. What are the odds of it happening in our measly 0-100~ year lifespans? I think it's quite likely that by the time a global disaster rolls around, technology will have advanced to the point that we are either extinct or capable of predicting and averting it.

I guess this doesn't have anything to do with your post, Dee. My thought path took me to a very strange place.

This post starring Sylvester Stallone as Ramble.