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You can take some meteor showers to the bank, like the Leonids, Perseids and Geminids. Other showers are more spikey; they can underperform one year, with just a few dozen meteors an hour, or boost up to hundreds in an hour – a full on meteor storm! Our next meteor shower, the Lyrids, is one of those examples, especially when the peak night coincides with a new Moon: April 21/22, 2012. Is it going to be amazing this year? There’s only one way to find out – get outside, and look up.
The meteors come from Comet Thatcher (C/1861 G1); the trail of debris left behind as it makes a 415-year highly elliptical journey around the Sun. And each year the Earth passes through this trail, scooping up the the tiny particles of ice and dust and annihilating them in the atmosphere. Thatcher’s loss is our gain.
They’re named for the constellation Lyra, since the meteors appear to emanate from a region just off to the side of the familiar constellation – the bright star Vega is part of Lyra. Don’t just look at that one spot, though, meteors can be seen anywhere in the sky.
Each year the Lyrids start to build around April 16, peaking on April 21/22, and then fade away by April 26. At the peak, the Lyrids can deliver 10-20 meteors per hour. But there can also be spikes of activity, with more than 100 meteors per hour, as the Earth passes through clumps in the dust trail.
It’s almost impossible to know, in advance, if it’s going to be a great year for any specific meteor shower. But this year’s Lyrids Meteor Shower coincides with a new Moon on April 21. Without the glare of a bright Moon, the meteors are easier to spot.
You can see the shower from any spot on Earth, just head outside on the evening of April 21, and give your eyes time to adjust to the dark skies. Get out of the glare of a city if you can, to a dark enough location that you can see the Milky Way once the skies have fully darkened. Here’s a handy map you can use to find dark sky locations in the US.
Of course, meteor showers are best shared with friends. Gather together some fellow astro-enthusiasts, pack some warm clothing, and enjoy the sky show. If you can, try to time your viewing as late as possible, or even in the early morning, when the sky has fully darkened and the stars are really bright.
And be patient. It might take a few hours, but you could be lucky enough to see a Lyrid fireball blaze across the sky, burning a trail into the night sky for a few moments. Just one fireball will make your whole evening worth while.
How does a comet “leave a trail” behind it? The dust should keep pace and travel with it through space. A la Pig Pen?
Warm clothing? pbpbpb, all you need is beer! On second thought, you may not remember the meteor shower.
If only I had a camera that would catch the trail as a meteor blazes. I envy those of you who’ve managed to get a shot of that!
As comets orbit the sun, dust and gas trails always follows direction away from the sun. The debris is essentially boiling off of the comet because of the radiation from the sun. It doesn’t follow the path of the comet because it has been pushed away from the sun, thus changing its trajectory.
Walked outside and saw a huge bright what seemed to be a star but it semnt to get lower or closer and brighter than seem to dim out until completely gone and then super bright again, was really cool a bit nerving as to what it really was but it is still out there if you look.
interested in knowing what it is if anyone knows.
Stumped in Texas
I saw the exactly what you saying a huge bright light so creepy~
Probably a tumbling satallite. I saw one yesterday (instead of a metoer 🙁 ) that flashed very quickly indicating it was tumbling very quickly too!
It could have just been a satellite. A satellite looks like a star that moves, but when it is in the earth’s shadow it dims or disappears, then reappears when it moves out of the earth’s shadow.
It’s like driving down a dirt road with a strong side wind. The dust cloud doesn’t follow the car, it follows the wind.
Clouds :(. Not what I want to see!
I didn’t see any Lyrids and only 1 metoer for the 2 hour stint I was out. However, there were a load of satellites last night!
Dang double darn.. working a dirty day job overtime meant I dint have a chance to view this one…
Today’s 04.23.12 Space Weather hassa bit about that big bolide in middle Calif… a debris trail is possible from the breakup as a sonic boom(s) were heard Sun. morning 04.22.12 IF you should see a strange ‘charcoal colored piece of rounded rock…………..* ? Not a Lyrid, but part of the impact between asteroid and comet that created the shower? An interesting co-incidence that leaves me wondering after the final orbital determinationszuh.