A meteor shower to end the year’s meteor shower drought will begin in earnest with the first shooting stars of the Lyrids starting again—as always—from mid-April until month’s end.
If the Lyrids visit when astronomers say they will (they usually do), they will stay within a relatively short window of time, by meteor shower standards, roughly from April 15–29.
Observers of meteor shower trends this year may note fewer than the usual 10–15 Lyrids per hour, under ideally dark and moonless conditions, undoubtedly because this year they will have to compete with the luminous waxing gibbous moon above the horizon.
The Lyrids’ predicted peak, on April 21, will closely coincide with the full moon, on April 23, sure to drown out some of the drama of shooting stars.
In the coming weeks, the warmer spring weather may comfort outdoor observers in search of these meteors which seem to hail from the constellation Lyra the Harp, after which the Lyrids were named.
A notable marker for locating Lyra, the constellation’s bright star Vega is close to the point in our sky from which the Lyrids appear to radiate outward, called their “radiant.”
It might seem counterintuitive, but the one place observers shouldn’t expect to find many meteors is anywhere in the vicinity of the radiant. Although the radiant is where the Lyrids seem to emanate from, they can crop up anywhere across the sky.
Thus, a good way to catch a glance of the Lyrids is to grab a sleeping bag, lay back on the grass or a lawn chair, and take in as much open sky as possible in a location with no light pollution.
Vega and the radiant will rise to the northeast at around 9 or 10 p.m., on your local clock, before climbing steadily above the horizon to reach high into the dome of the sky. The best time for viewing meteors during peak period is between late evening and early morning, though meteors are notoriously hard to predict.
The Lyrids are famous for their rare yet regular and predictable outbursts with surges of as many as 100 meteors per hour, though this happens only once every 60 years. There will be no outbursts this year nor any until 2042, according to estimates.
It’s believed these surges are caused by gravitational disturbances from planets in the solar system which stir cosmic debris in outer space. This debris is where meteors come from when it falls down on Earth and burns up in our atmosphere.
Meteors have probably always existed in a solar system that is simply awash with endless supplies of space debris—the sources of this debris are dirty, icy objects called comets and their rockier cousins, asteroids, which orbit the sun as the planets do. Bits of matter break off these objects and form vast complexes of dust that collide with Earth periodically.
Astronomers believe the parent of the Lyrids is an object called Comet Thatcher. Rather than hailing from constellation Lyra, lightyears away, the Lyrids were thrown off the comet and now follow its orbit around the sun—much closer to home than constellation Lyra.
These unimaginably long dust trails that travel uniformly along respective orbits seem to radiate from a single point when we see them shoot into our sky. The apparent convergence is a mere illusion, similar to how train tracks travelling parallel seem to converge on the horizon but never really meet.
While the Lyrids return each year, Comet Thatcher won’t be seen by human eyes for many generations to come—its orbit is just so enormous.
According to the late astronomer Don Machholz, said comet won’t return to its closest point from the sun, or perihelion, until around 2283. Discovered by Alfred E. Thatcher in April 1861, the object—officially called C/1861 G1 (Thatcher)—was found to circle the sun once every 415 years. Its point farthest from the sun, or aphelion, is an incredible 110 astronomical units away—110 times farther from the sun than we are.
While a European is credited with sighting Comet Thatcher first, the distinction of discovering the Lyrids belongs to a much more ancient culture. During China’s Spring and Autumn Period, in the year 687 B.C., the ancient Chinese are said to have seen Lyrid meteors falling like rain.
The bottom line? From April 15–29, the Lyrids will end the year’s meteor shower drought and peak on April 21, though the waxing gibbous moon will probably cause less than ideal viewing conditions. But with the warming weather making the outdoors more pleasant, it still might be worth laying back to search for shooting stars!
