Lyrid meteor shower to light up night skies over UK

Yahoo

22-04-2025

The Lyrid meteor shower is predicted to peak on Tuesday night, with streaks of light dotting the night sky.
The annual celestial event has been observed since the seventh century BC, making it the oldest recorded meteor shower in history.
A meteor shower – otherwise known as shooting stars – occurs when asteroids or comets enter Earth's atmosphere at very high speeds and burn up.
'As comets orbit the Sun, the heat and radiation pressure evaporates material from the icy cometary nucleus, which we see as a comet's tail,' said Prof Don Pollacco, of the University of Warwick.
'The gas and dust created stay in the comet's orbit even long after the comet has moved on. If the Earth passes through the comet's orbit, any material deposited by the comet could become meteors or shooting stars in the sky.
'These bodies are usually the size of dust particles but when they fall into the Earth's atmosphere they are travelling so fast that they are vaporised. Along the path that the dust particle travels, the gas molecules are superheated and give out light – this is a meteor.'
The Lyrids are created by debris from Comet Thatcher, which orbits the Sun and was discovered in 1861.
'The Lyrids are caused by Earth passing through the dusty trail left by Comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher, a long-period comet that orbits the Sun roughly every 415 years,' said Dr Shyam Balaji, a researcher in astroparticle physics and cosmology at King's College London.
'As these comet particles burn up in our atmosphere, they produce bright streaks of light, what we see as meteors.'
The Lyrids will be visible throughout Britain.
'The Lyrids are visible from most of the world but they are best seen from the Northern Hemisphere,' said Dr Balaji. 'Southern Hemisphere viewers can still catch some meteors, though the visibility there is less.
'While they're usually modest – about 10–20 meteors per hour at the peak – they occasionally produce meteor outbursts, with up to 100 meteors per hour.
'Lyrid meteors are known for being bright and fast, often leaving glowing trails in the sky that linger for a few seconds.'
Experts recommend looking for the meteor shower in the early hours of the morning.
'Meteor showers typically have the highest rates in the early hours of the morning but can be seen any time the sky is dark,' said Dr Sam Rolfe, an astronomer at the University of Hertfordshire.
'Dark sky locations around the UK would provide the best skies but a garden or local park is also fine. The Moon doesn't rise until around 3am, so the naturally dark skies will make for good meteor shower viewing.
'At the height of the shower, observers can expect to see up to 18 meteors per hour but this is dependent on the density of the debris cloud and the artificial light pollution levels at the site of observation as fainter meteors are less likely to be spotted in areas with artificial light pollution.'
No specialist equipment is required to view the Lyrids, according to Dr Robert Massey, deputy executive director of the Royal Astronomical Society.
'The good thing about a meteor shower – and the Lyrids are no exception – is that you don't need any special equipment,' he said.
'The best equipment is just your eyes, looking up at the sky. Now in this particularly case, the radiant – the point of the sky they appear to come from – is in the constellation of Lyra, near the bright star Vega, part of the Summer Triangle.'
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