[Conan the Librarian]

‘3. Betelgeuse goes supernova wiping out the world.’

I would worry more about this than anything else.

But, even so, I doubt it would actually wipe out life on Earth. The Big B is very big, but, not that big.

[KarlInOhio]

You must not have been paying much attention to the weekend web panic. Betelgeuse to go supernova this year! Two suns in the sky at once!! Gamma ray burst requires SPF 6 billion!!!

Then some of the saner voices came in and explained how far away Betelgeuse is and that it won't destroy us.

Dr. Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog talks about it, along with the award winning lines "As bad as that was, it got worse when The Huffington Post weighed in, adding their own nonsense to the story," and "instead of going away, it gets picked up by that bastion of antiscience, The Huffington Post. "