The truly large bright stars don't really "live" long enough in that state to travel great distances on an astronomical scale, and if there was one in our area

The truly large bright stars don't really "live" long enough in that state to travel great distances on an astronomical scale, and if there was one in our area we'd be in trouble[1]. Large stars smaller than that but large enough to be significantly bright would probably look a lot like a planet, but long-term could also be bad for us if they were close enough and massive enough to even slightly destabilize orbits - the impact might take thousands of years to truly materialize, but climate change has nothin' on orbit change. Also, anything both large/bright enough to be easily visible AND headed in our direction would likely have been noticed at this point. It may happen someday, but the descendants of the cockroaches are the ones who'll have to deal with it. [1] http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/supernove-distance http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/supernove-distance