Observers of the skies will finally be able to enjoy the thrill of watching “shooting stars” again this week as the April Lyridi meteor shower arrives after a three-month meteor shower.
For those who like to watch the night sky for the view of meteors, popularly called “falling” or “falling” stars, the last few months have been quite quiet. There are many meteor showers that occur during the year, but only ten are recognized as “major” meteor displays. The last such shower that took place was Quadrant meteor shower on January 3. Since then, there have been no other remarkable meteor showers to look for.
Finally, in 109 days – more than 15 weeks – we will have the opportunity to enjoy the night show with the April Lyrids again.
Connected: How to shoot meteors and meteor showers
The Lyridi meteor shower has been known for thousands of years. Records from Chinese chronicles show that they appear regularly from at least 687 BC.
In his long volume, Meteor Showers and Their Parent Comets (Cambridge University Press, 2006), author Peter Jennickens noted that Lyridi’s annual rain has always been my favorite. After the low levels in the cold months of February and March, this shower is the proverbial swallow of spring for observers in the northern hemisphere. ”
The 2022 version of Lyrids is expected to peak on Friday (April 22) in the morning. The radiant – the emission point of these meteors – is about 6 degrees southwest of the brilliant bluish star Vega in constellation Lyra, which rises in the northeastern sky in the late evening and stands practically overhead at dawn. The moon, one day shy last quarterhowever, it will interfere somewhat with meteor light.
Any meteor whose path is extended within a few degrees of Vega is likely to be Lyrid. Lyrids are rich in weak meteors, with occasional bright ones. They are considered one of the weakest of the main displays. Compared to August perseids and December Geminidswhich can lead to many dozens of meteor observations during an hour-long observation, Lyrids typically give only about 10 to 20 meteors per hour maximum.
Usually this shower is above a quarter peak two days before and after the maximum, so if the weather in your area is unstable on the morning of the 22nd, you still have a chance to catch a few lirides a day or two before or after their peak. activity.
But there is always a small chance of surprise.
1803: Meteor storm
The April Lyrids sometimes provided spectacular performances, as they did in 687 BC, when Chinese records said the stars “fell like rain” and at least a dozen other times since. The story often tells of how the inhabitants of Richmond, Virginia, were lifted from their beds by the fire bell on the morning of April 20, 1803. The fire that broke out in the armory was quickly extinguished, but this gave the townspeople the opportunity to see meteors falling in large quantities from all parts of the sky.
Another account was a letter published in the Raleigh Register, North Carolina:
“We, the undersigned … were on a fishing party on Wednesday evening, April 20, and were returning home at about 1 o’clock in the morning, alarmed by the appearance of stars. the whole hemisphere as the continuation of the horizon seemed illuminated; the meteors did not support a particular direction, but seemed to move in each direction. We looked at the phenomenon of space for perhaps half an hour in amazement, during which there was no interruption. We clearly heard hissing in the air, but did not hear reports. The above statements can be relied on as facts. “(Signed by four men).
Other similar accounts come from New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Delaware.
The meteor burst of 1803 was completely unexpected. Very little is known about meteors in the 18th and 19th centuries, except for a slight increase in their numbers each year in early August. Today we know that the ancestor of meteors is Lyrid Comet Thatcher who goes around the sun in about 415 years of orbit and was last seen in the spring of 1861.
Other surprises
In 1922, a short burst of 100 meteors per hour was reported. In 1982, speeds unexpectedly reached 90 in an hour and a staggering 180 to 300 per hour in a few minutes. “Indeed, many of Lyridi’s past outbursts may have been missed simply because of gaps in observations,” writes Paul Rogermans in the Sky Publishing Corporation’s 1989 Visual Observation Manual.
So it might not be a bad idea to set the alarm for 3 or 4 in the morning on April 22 to look out the window for a while, regardless of the moonlight.
Hey. . . you never know.
Upcoming attractions
The next significant meteorite exhibition is scheduled for the first week of May Eta Aquarids. This rain is one of the most popular annual events for meteorite observers in the Southern Hemisphere; one of the best annual showers. Unfortunately, northern observers are hampered by the low altitude of the radiant of this shower, plus the arrival of the twilight just when the radiant appears. Meteoroids produced by this rain can be traced Halley’s Comet. The peak for Eta Aquarids for 2022 is expected on the morning of May 6.
But there is a second meteor shower in May, which may be the best of the year.
All-or-nothing meteorite display.
Not many people have heard of Tau Herculid shower. It usually produces no more than a few meteors during a night watch. But things changed dramatically when in late 1995 the core of Comet 73P / Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 (the parental body of the soul) fragmented. Now a number of meteorists have confirmed what I proposed last year: A stream of particles ejected during the destruction of the comet could lead to a dramatic outburst in late May 2022.
However, this prediction is uncertain, as no one knows for sure how fast the disposal of fresh comet the dust left the decaying core at 73P. However, we all agree that whatever happens will happen around 1 am EDT (0500 GMT) on May 31st. This is a great time for the southern half of North America, including almost all of the neighboring United States (evening twilight will interfere with the Pacific Northwest and almost all of Canada). Even better, the light from the moon, one day after its new phase, will not interfere.
A cloud of comet debris will strike The Earth at a very slow speed of 10 miles (16 kilometers) per second, which would normally result in very weak meteors. However, the radiant shower will be high in the sky for North and South America, and the meteoroid swarm may be thick enough to create a spectacular visual show.
Space.com will provide more details on this future new meteor display in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!
Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer in New York Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Journal of Natural Historyon Farmer’s Almanac and other publications. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and so on Facebook.
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