April is currently a capital calendar month for lover of the nighttime sky . We had ageomagnetic stormthat led to lower - latitude and more vivid Northern Lights , the first Full Moon of spring , thePink Moon , a rarefour - planet planetary alignmenthappening properly now , and the first meteor shower since January , the Lyrids , which peaks tonight .
The Lyrids are not considered a particularly spectacular meteor shower year on year but they are consistent . From April 15 to 29 , this meteor shower will mottle across the sky , with its prime expected in the early hour of April 22 , according to theInternational Meteor Organization . They are foretell Lyrids as they appear to come from the focusing of the Lyra constellation , whose brightest star Vega , is easy to recognize .
Although the full Moon waning means it will still be bright enough to make observations more difficult unless you remain up into the early hour , with good condition , you should see about 18 meteors per minute visible across the sky .
These shooting star are the track of debris left in the internal Solar System byComet C/1861 G1 Thatcheras it orbits the Sun . This long - period comet discharge its trek around our sensation every 415 years or so . It was first observed in 1861 so the next sentence around will be from 2276 forwards , making it a bit unconvincing that any of us will be watching it ( but you never screw ) .
Despite its long period , the gravitational influence of the major planet have a shorter - term gist on the detritus remnant . Every 60 age or so , the wake of debris comes straight into Earth ’s orbit boosting the event for one season . The last clock time it happen in1982 , observers counted around 90 shoot superstar per hour at its peak . This entail we have to expect for another 20 years for the next .
This episodic surge has been of the essence to making the Lyrids so well - known across story . They are in fact one of the oldest known meteor exhibitor , For example among the most incredible showers in history is theLyrids extremum of 1803 , when up to 700 meteors an hour were witnessed raining down by a journalist in Richmond , Virginia .
An equally impressive result comes from almost 2,000 years sooner described in theZuo Zhuan , an ancient Taiwanese story history , that depict a Lyrids meteor shower as the " stars fall like rain " in 687 BCE . This meteoroid shower is even refer inAustralian Indigenous Astronomy , which extend even more millennia into the past times .
