A METEOR has crashed in a blaze of colour in South Africa, but experts are unable to find where the out-of-space visitor landed. The rare astronomical phenomenon was captured by a local traffic camera and witnessed by locals, British tabloid the Sun reports.

The footage initially shows cars on a busy road, near the city of Johannesburg, when the meteor suddenly streaks across the night sky. The meteor appears as a brilliant green light before it explodes on the horizon, transforming into an orange ball of flame.

One witness told the Sun: “We saw this big green ball of fire. It kind of came out of the sky, out of the blue. “There was a sudden flash, like an orange stripe in the sky, followed by a very bright explosion where the sky lit up as if it was daytime.”

disinfo.com

In 2005 an Ethiopian volcano erupted, tearing a thirty-five mile rift in the country in a matter of days.  That might be slightly slower than the average Michael Bay event but it’s still incredibly fast in geological terms – especially since this may well be the first sign of an incoming Ethiopian Ocean.  Nature seems to like keeping us on our toes.

It’s known that new oceans form as magma forces its way into rifts between tectonic plates, but since every other such system worked – and is now under miles of ocean – we can’t actually get down there for a detailed look.  Instead, an international collaboration of scientists both local and abroad studied the sudden “mega-dike intrusion” (a much less scary way of saying “holy hell our country just ripped open”) and found that it matches all the signs for a prototype ocean bed.

The spectacular speed is what stunned scientists: it was assumed that such events occurred slowly in smaller steps, not sudden tectonic upheavals of the kind that cut the Earth itself open in less than a week.  We were wrong about that.  This raises important questions, both in terms of geophysical processes which shape the Earth we live on, and for anyone living within an earthquake of such a region.
Even with earthquake acceleration it’ll be a long time before an Ethiopian port becomes an issue.  But this sudden starting point will be an international hub of oceanographic interest until then – and with oceanographers carefully studying the African desert, it’s proof that Nature has a sense of irony.
dailygalaxy.com

Republic of Ireland v France
Portugal v Bosnia-Herzegovina
Greece v Ukraine
Russia v Slovenia

First leg: Nov 14
Second leg: Nov 18

The Republic of Ireland’s hopes of making the World Cup finals suffered a blow after they were drawn against France in the play-offs.

To make matter more difficult for Giovanni Trapattoni’s Irish side, France will also have the advantage of playing the second leg of the play-offs at home.

Irish fans were hoping to draw Greece but instead Ukraine will travel to Athens for the first leg. Portugal will play Bosnia-Herzegovina while Russia take on Slovenia

Trapattoni had criticised FIFA for seeding the play-offs – Ireland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ukraine and Slovenia were all unseeded meaning they could not play each other.

Kevin Kilbane said Ireland were full of confidence ahead of today’s draw for the World Cup qualification play-offs. He said: “We are confident of beating anyone over two legs.”

Fifa have been strongly criticised over the decision to seed the play-offs, which has been perceived as a clear attempt to ease the qualification of ‘big’ teams like France and Portugal.

Trapattoni described the seeding system as the “death of football”, while Republic goalkeeper Shay Given branded them “disgusting” and “totally unfair on the smaller nations”.
telegraph.co.uk