They started on April 14, continue until the 30th, but peak this morning. On the night of this Saturday to Sunday (April 22-23), between 1:00 am and 5:00 am, look at the sky. A meteor shower is coming: the Lyrids.
This rain will be visible all over the world, including Portugal, and, according to Ricardo Reis, from the scientific communication group of the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences, this “is a good year.” Although the Lyrids are not “the main” meteor showers of the year – 18 meteors per hour are forecast at their peak – many of them will be “bolides”, that is, “they last longer and make very bright trails”.
In addition, the phase of the Moon will also be favorable to the visibility of this phenomenon. “We are going to have a new moon and a very thin crescent that practically does not illuminate the sky. Anyone who can move to dark places to observe, will surely see some meteors crossing the sky, “says the TSF Ricardo Reyes.
“The number of meteors that are forecast in dark skies is about 10% of what we see when we are in a city. In this case we see about 20 meteors per hour in a dark sky, in a city the typical thing would be to see two, but since there are fireballs in this shower, which are brighter, the probability of seeing more meteors is quite high, even in cities.” , underline.
What are the Lyrids?
Like all other meteor showers that occur throughout the year, these represent “the passage of the Earth in the wake of comets that cross Earth’s orbit,” he explains.
In the case of the Lyrids, the comet in question is C1861 G1 Thatcher. “As the Earth passes through this trail of dust left by the comet, it enters our atmosphere at high speed, becomes incandescent and forms meteors,” says the expert.
The name “Lyrids” comes from the constellation of the sky to which they are associated: “All showers of stars or meteors have the name that is associated with the constellation of the sky from which they seem to emanate, it is a kind of vanishing point, the area of the Earth facing that direction in the sky when we cross the comet’s trail. In the case of the Lyrids, this radiant is in the constellation Lyra, hence the name Lyrids.”
How to observe the phenomenon?
To be able to see the meteors this morning, you don’t need any special equipment. It is enough, says Ricardo Reis, “to go as far as possible from the cities, towards dark skies”.
“Turn towards the constellation of Lyra, which rises around 10:00 p.m. If you can look towards the East, when it reaches the maximum, in principle, we will see several meteors coming from that direction. Although the point from which they seem to emanate is the constellation of Lyra, they [as Líridas] It can appear all over the sky. The ideal is even a place with as much sky as possible, preferably lying on your stomach looking up, facing the side of the constellation Lyra ”, he adds.
Source: TSF
