The Lyrid Meteor Shower.

The Lyrid Meteor Shower is expected to be visible between Thursday 16 and Saturday 25 April this year (2022), and will be at peak visibility on Wednesday 22 April. With the First Quarter Moon not falling till the 24th this year,  there should be a good chance to see some meteors in cloudless areas. At its peak the Lyrid Meteor shower typically produces about 20 meteors per hour, though higher rates have been recorded. The Lyrid Meteors take their name from the constellation of Lyra, from which they appear to radiate, at a point close to the star Vega, which will be above the horizon for most of the night from most places in the Northern Hemisphere, while rising at about midnight in much of the Southern Hemisphere. Viewing is typically best in the hours before dawn, although peak meteor activity should occur at about 8.00 pm GMT.

The Radiant Point (i.e. point from which the meteors appear to radiate) of the Lyrid Meteors. Bruce McClure/Joni Hall/EarthSky/Wikimedia Commons.

Meteor streams are thought to come from dust shed by comets as they come close to the Sun and their icy surfaces begin to evaporate away. Although the dust is separated from the comet, it continues to orbit the Sun on roughly the same orbital path, creating a visible meteor shower when the Earth crosses that path, and flecks of dust burn in the upper atmosphere, due to friction with the atmosphere.

The Earth passing through a stream of comet dust, resulting in a meteor shower. Not to scale. Astro Bob.

The Lyrid Meteors are comprised of debris from the comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher (named after its discoverer, the astronomer A. E. Thatcher, not the politician). This is a long-period comet that spends most of its time in the Oort Cloud, only visiting the inner Solar System once every 415 years, the last occasion being in 1861. When the comet visits the inner Solar System it is heated by the Sun, melting the ices that make up its surface and releasing a trail of dust, which continues to follow the path of the comet. The Earth passes through this trail in April each year, creating a light show as the dust particles burn in the upper atmosphere.

How the passage of the Earth through a meteor shower creates a radiant point from which they can be observed. In The Sky.

Comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher completes one orbit every 415 years on an eccentric orbit tilted at 79.8° to the plane of the Solar System, that takes it from 0.92 AU from the Sun (92% of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun) to 106 AU from the Sun (110 times as far from the Sun as the Earth, and more than three times the distance at which the planet Neptune orbits the Sun). The comet last visited the Inner Solar System in 1891, and is expected to return again in 2306. As a comet with an orbital period of more than 200 years it is considered to be a Long Period Comet.

The orbit and current position of Comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher. JPL Small Body Database.

See also...