Catch the Lyrid meteors: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher

The Lyrid meteor bathe can produce as much as 20 meteors an hour. Credit score: Gregg Alliss

The Lyrid meteors peak this week — what number of can you see?

Meteor showers are produced when specks of particles left behind by comets dissipate in Earth’s environment. For the Lyrids, we have now Comet Thatcher (C/1861 G1) to thank. Each April, when Earth plows into Thatcher’s particles path, we get a bathe of meteors, showing to radiate from a degree in Lyra the Harp.

The Lyrids are sometimes a very good bathe and usually produce between 5 to twenty meteors per hour. Sadly, they coincide this yr with a close-to-Full Moon, which can wash out faint meteors. However in case you get away from metropolis lights to a transparent sky and keep up late — the perfect time to look at any meteor bathe is after midnight — you need to see some vivid ones.