How to spot the Lyrid meteor shower tonight

The Lyrid meteor shower peaks on the evening of April 22nd or the early hours of the 23rd, but you can look for them anytime between the 16th and the 25th. The new scientistA stargazing companion will talk you through what to look for. Audio can be found below or in the source of the podcast episodes The world, the universe and us.

Meteors are caused by high-velocity debris from space hitting the Earth’s atmosphere. These tiny grains of dust or rock enter the atmosphere at such a speed that the friction between them and the air burns them up, creating a flash that moves across the sky.

As the Earth orbits the Sun each year, it passes through a series of clouds of dust and debris left behind by comets or asteroids, causing an increase in the number of meteors we see. This is why the same meteor showers occur at the same time each year.

The Lyrid meteor shower is caused by the long-period comet C/1861 G1, also known as Thatcher. Thatcher, discovered in 1861, takes 415 years to orbit the Sun. It is expected to return to our part of the solar system around 2278.

You don’t have to look in one part of the sky to see a meteor shower. But each one is named after the patch of sky where the meteors seem to start or emanate from. In this case, it is the Northern Hemisphere constellation Lyra, which contains the bright star Vega.

If you are in the Northern Hemisphere, you can look for the constellation Lyra. The constellation will not be visible from the southern hemisphere, but meteors can travel in all directions, so some shooting stars may be visible if you look east.

From the Northern Hemisphere, Lyra will be in the east just after sunset. If you look a little later, it will be higher in the sky, so it’s a better time to look for meteors – although the closer you get to sunrise, the brighter the sky will be.

The easiest way to find Lyra is to look for a star pattern known as the Summer Triangle, so named because it consists of three bright stars in a triangle shape and appears directly overhead around midnight in the Northern Hemisphere summer. At midnight in late April, three bright stars appear near the eastern horizon. The highest of these is Vega, and that is in Lyra.

If you’re looking at the top and have a clear, dark sky, you can see 10 to 18 meteors in an hour.

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