GRB from Betelgeuse Super nova or Nasty NanoTech
Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2014 11:41 pm
Two disasters I have not seen listed here so far are:-
Betelgeuse could go supernova at any time and I think its the closest star likely to do so on a reasonable time frame but it could be as much as a million years. Its unlikely to take us a out as it would just cause some interesting sky lighting effects in the normal course of events but IIRC there is a very slim possibility that if one of the poles of its remnant happens to briefly point a gamma ray burst(GRB) in our direction it might have overly interesting effects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betelgeuse
Nasty NanoTech
Moore's Law of certain types of technological progression suggests that by the middle of this centenary we should have a fairly advanced capability in this area and like all powerful technology's its a double edged sword that could be both very good and very bad some of the worst case scenarios make a Megaton nuke look like a party popper in comparison.
Betelgeuse could go supernova at any time and I think its the closest star likely to do so on a reasonable time frame but it could be as much as a million years. Its unlikely to take us a out as it would just cause some interesting sky lighting effects in the normal course of events but IIRC there is a very slim possibility that if one of the poles of its remnant happens to briefly point a gamma ray burst(GRB) in our direction it might have overly interesting effects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betelgeuse
Nasty NanoTech
Moore's Law of certain types of technological progression suggests that by the middle of this centenary we should have a fairly advanced capability in this area and like all powerful technology's its a double edged sword that could be both very good and very bad some of the worst case scenarios make a Megaton nuke look like a party popper in comparison.