We live on a rapidly rotating ball of slowly crystallizing minerals. This piece of rock spinning around a nuclear fireball. Which, moreover, itself moves deep into galactic space. And this fact makes people nervous.
But there are also terrible gravity wells. These are «clawed paws» of giant planets. And there are literally changing the rules of «ordinary» space and time event horizons of black holes. One step through the threshold, and no return. Getting there is a one-way ticket.
And what seems to us to be empty space is itself a creeping fog of destructive radiation. Cosmos is full of gamma rays (that can make you a handful of ashes) and also has x-rays and ultra-high-energy particles. They have such physical properties that they are able to simply tear matter and spray it over space.