NIEDERHOLLABRUNN, AUSTRIA – APRIL 21: (EDITORS NOTE: Multiple exposures were combined to produce … [+]
Shooting star season is back. The first quarter of each year is always the sleepiest for meteor showers, but then they come back in full force with the Lyrid meteor shower each April.
For roughly the last two weeks of the month, the Lyrids will be active and visible under optimal conditions, with a peak in activity on April 22-23 generating somewhere between 10 to 20 shooting stars or fireballs per hour if you’re lucky, according to NASA.
Where Do The Lyrids Come From?
Every year around this time as we circle the sun, the Earth passes through a cloud of dust and debris left behind by the comet 1861 G1 Thatcher. The big cosmic snowball doesn’t pass through the inner solar system very often: it last visited our neighborhood in 1861 and isn’t expected to return until the 2270s.
As our world drifts through this cloud, a number of the motes of dust or bits of gravel impact our upper atmosphere and try to make a run for the surface but almost never make it.
The shooting stars you see are these little pieces of space detritus burning up high in the upper atmosphere. The bigger hunks might generate a fireball that burns a little brighter and longer.
XILINGOL, CHINA – APRIL 19: A shooting star of the Lyrid meteor shower is observed from the Mingantu … [+]
When Is The Best Time To See The Lyrids?
The Lyrids should officially become active this weekend and will build to a peak expected around the evening of April 22 into the following morning. To be precise, around the hours of midnight to 3 a.m. UTC on the 23rd.
That means the hours between sunset and midnight in the US on the evening of the 22nd are probably going to be prime viewing time. However, at this time the portion of the night sky the Lyrids will appear to emanate outwards from will be lower or even below the horizon. This region, called a radiant, will be higher in the sky in the hours before sunrise.
In other words, it’s a bit of a catch-22: the peak happens when the radiant is lower in the sky and less visible for viewers in the western hemisphere and activity may already be falling off by the time the radiant is ideally positioned overhead.
European viewers are likely to get the best of both worlds, with a peak in activity coming just before dawn.
One bonus to observing earlier when the radiant is lower in the sky is that you may spot the rare and odd shooting star that appears to fly upwards from the horizon.
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 22: (Multiple exposures were combined in camera to produce this image.) The … [+]
Will There Be Any Bright Fireballs?
Probably. The Lyrids are a meteor shower known for bright trails and the occasional fireball.
The visibility of these meteors is also helped by the fact the moon will be little more than a crescent and will have set long before the radiant is high in the sky, so ideal dark sky conditions abound.
Is There Any Chance Of A Meteor Outburst Or Storm?
Sometimes our planet passes through a particularly dense pocket of debris that can lead to intense outbursts of meteor activity in which we might see two or three times the expected hourly rate. And in very rare instances those rates might soar into the hundreds or even over a thousand meteor sightings per hour from a single location, which is dubbed a meteor storm.
The Lyrids seem to have produced outbursts about every sixty years since 1803. The most recent such event was in 1982, meaning the best chance to see a Lyrid Lollapalooza is in the early 2040s, but predicting meteor activity is a notoriously unpredictable endeavor. In other words, a random outburst is always a possibility on any given year.
“There have been unverified reports of lesser outbursts which have led us to think that there may be debris from this comet trapped in shorter orbits with a 12- or 20-year return period,” Robert Lunsford writes for the American Meteor Society. “Therefore, we suggest that potential observers observe the Lyrids at every opportunity just in case something unusual occurs.”
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 21: (EDITORS NOTE: Multiple exposures were combined in camera to produce … [+]
How Do I Spot Shooting Stars?
The first step is to find a viewing location away from light pollution with dark skies and a broad view of the (hopefully cloudless) darkened dome overhead.
Bring along a blanket, hammock or some other means of staying comfortable and warm on your back outside for at least an hour. You really need to dedicate that much time to the experience to make sure you outlast the inevitable lulls in activity that are often followed by bursts of multiple meteors in a short period, followed by another lull…
Ideally you’ll position yourself to be looking toward the constellation Hercules, which isn’t the easiest to spot but an app like Stellarium can help get you oriented. This way you’ll be facing the radiant from which the meteors will appear to emanate outwards from, like spokes on a bike from a wheel hub.
Truthfully though, this isn’t a key consideration and it’s more important to just relax and have a broad view of the sky. There are always a few random meteors that aren’t even part of the Lyrid dust cloud and appear to come from nowhere.
You can try to tell if a particular meteor is truly a Lyrid by tracing it back to it radiant. If it seems to have come from near the constellation Lyra or Hercules, it probably was.
Once you’re positioned, allow at least 15 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the dark and then just chill and watch. That’s all there is to it.
Oh, and don’t forget snacks.
If you miss the peak night, don’t worry. It’s possible to catch a handful of meteors in an hour of watching just about any night during the last half of April.
