Lyrid Meteor Shower ‘Fireballs' To Peak Monday — Exactly When To Watch
The Lyrid meteor shower, one of the oldest known displays of shooting stars, is already underway and will peak overnight on Monday-Tuesday, April 21-22, with about 18 meteors per hour expected—including some super-bright fireballs.
The Lyrid meteor shower runs from April 17-26 but will peak on the night of Monday, April 21, through Tuesday, April 22. According to the American Meteor Society, the peak is around 13:00 UTC on April 22 (08:00 a.m. EDT on April 22).
The early hours after midnight — when any location on Earth is the darkest — is the best time to look up.
Though its 'shooting stars' will appear to have come from the constellation Lyra in the eastern sky, they can appear anywhere in the sky. Lyra, centered on the bright star Vega, is rising in the northeastern night sky a few hours after dark this month. The later you look, the higher Lyra will be, and the more chance you'll have of a better display.
'View them after about 10:30 p.m. local time until dawn, with the best viewing around 5 a.m.,' reads a blog post published by NASA. 'The waning crescent moon will rise around 3:30 a.m. [local time], but at only 27% full, it shouldn't interfere too much with your meteor watching.' The Lyrids are best seen from the Northern Hemisphere but can also be seen from south of the equator.
The number of meteors is hard to predict, and it can vary. 'About 10 years ago, the Lyrids had an unexpected outburst,' said Dr. Nick Moskovitz, expert astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, in an interview. 'Nobody saw it coming, and we saw over 100 meteors per hour.'
Most meteor showers are caused by dust and debris left in the inner solar system by a comet, but for the Lyrids, it's the rather mysterious C/1861 G1 (Thatcher). 'The Lyrids' parent comet is obscure; nobody knows much about it,' said Moskovitz. 'The last time it was in our neck of the woods in the solar system was back in 1861, and it won't be back around in this part of the solar system until 2283."
Meteors are caused by small particles of rock and dust left in the inner solar system by a comet, entering Earth's atmosphere and burning up, releasing energy as photons of light. Fireballs are particularly bright meteors that can have a long train behind them. 'The Lyrids have a wide range of particle sizes, from talcum powder to grapefruit-sized particles,' said Moskovitz. 'They're unique due to the large particles left behind by Comet Thatcher.'
The next meteor shower will be the Eta Aquarids, which runs from April 19 through May 28, peaking in the early hours of Monday, May 5, when around 40-60 shooting stars are expected per hour. The Eta Aquariids are the product of Halley's Comet.
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