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Today we are going to take another look at the Lyrids meteor shower. I did mention it in the overview of April, but I do want to revisit it in a little bit more detail and also look at its parent body, comet C/1861 G1 (Thatcher).

The April Lyrids is the main upcoming meteor shower. It will peak to its maximum on the 22nd. As this radiant is coming above the horizon for us here in Ireland, there is still a lot of light in the sky, as it occurs at just around sunset. This will be the peak of this meteor shower. Stellarium shows the zenith hourly maximum rate is up to 90 meteors per hour. It is a variable meteor shower and we will probably get a maximum lower than 90 this year.

On the 22nd, just coming up to 9 o’clock local time, so about 8pm UTC, is when it will be peaking. Stellarium shows the actual rate at that time getting up to 90 meteors an hour. However, because the radiant is so low in the sky, we’re only seeing about 5 here in Ireland. Then there’s the light pollution, and the glow of the Sun at sunset. Realistically, when this meteor shower begins, we won’t see any of it. As we move later in the evening, the actual amount of meteors is likely to go down because we’re moving away from the peak of the meteor shower. However, the radiant will continue to get higher and higher in the sky, and that means we’re going to have a better chance of seeing the meteors coming from that radiant. If we continue to move into the night, the zenith hourly rate, the actual zenith hourly rate will continue to go down, but our local hourly rate will go up. Moving through the night until we see the absolute peak for us, which of course isn’t the peak of the actual meteor shower, we’re getting up into the 30s, while the actual maximum has dropped down to 78. It look slike the maximum, according to Stellarium, is up to 36. We’re close to the absolute best rate that we’re going to see here in Ireland just before the Sun comes up. The radiant will still be very high in the sky, but we are coming into daytime, and we’re not going to see any of the meteors really while the Sun is up.

Here in Ireland, it does seem like we’re peaking at about 36 meteors an hour, which means the best time really for us to see the meteor shower is just before sunrise, at about 4 o’clock local time. That’s the best time to see this particular meteor shower. However, it is going to be running the entire evening of the 22nd. The Moon and Jupiter will be right next to each other on the 22nd as mentioned in the previous piece, so the Moon will set reasonably early. This meteor shower is going to be running for the entire night, from the moment the sky gets dark enough, there is a chance that we will see some meteors in the sky. Our chances will improve as the radiant gets higher, but our chances aren’t going to be as good as those locations that are already in complete darkness when it’s at its actual peak. This particular meteor shower will be a little bit tricky to see because we’re seeing it way over in the east, just as the Sun is setting in the west, so for everywhere here on Earth, the summer triangle will be rising as the Sun goes down. In certain locations, the sky will be darker earlier, if you’re in the far southern hemisphere, for example, moving into winter time, but of course, there’s not as many people living in the far southern hemisphere, so that’s going to be less useful for many people.

That is the April Lyrid meteor shower. We’re going to take a look now for the comet, the comet Thatcher. It’s actual position may be a little different from what Stellarium suggests, because its orbital elements are calculated here for 1861, when it was discovered. This is, of course, quite far out of date. It is a periodic comet and it looks like its period here is 415 years, so quite a long period comet, it will be hundreds of years before this one finally comes back into the inner solar system. Currently it is basically 36th magnitude, it’s incredibly faint, very hard to see, and it is 107 AU from the Sun. It’s going to be a long time before this comet comes back into the inner solar system and replenishes the Lyrid meteor shower. Meteor showers don’t last forever. Some meteor showers are comparatively new because they were created by comets that have gone by comparatively recently or have only begun their cycle comparatively recently. Some meteor showers are older than others. There are reports of meteor showers at least going back until the 1700s and there are stories, oral tales of meteor showers that go back even further into history. For cultures that didn’t just record things in writing, these records can go back further than writing. Different meteor showers are different ages, some of them fade over time. The April Lyrids haven’t been replenished in hundreds of years, so there is a good chance that we’re going to see less meteor showers from them in hundreds of years as we move forward, until they are hopefully replenished by Comet Thatcher when it comes back around.

The April Lyrids are certainly the biggest meteor shower that we’re seeing, certainly in the Northern hemisphere for April, but there are also the π-Puppids. That is π or “pi”, it is a Greek letter as well as a mathematical symbol. There does seem to be a parent body, 26P/Gregg-Skjellerup, that is the comet that produced the Puppids. The Puppids are peaking on the 24th of April. This shower isn’t going to be visible from here in Ireland, and in fact, because the radiant of the Puppids is so close to the Sun in the sky, it’s not going to be visible for long for anybody. Looking very early on the 24th, just quarter past midnight UTC, that’s when it’s peaking at its potential 40. We have no local hourly rate because this radiant is so low below the horizon for us, we’d hardly see any of the these. It’s only getting up to a maximum of 40, getting less and less as we go through the 24th. Thanks to its peak starting so early on the 24th, unsurprisingly it really begins and has a reasonable amount visible back on the 23rd. Going back as far as nearly 6 o’clock, 6pm UTC, the π-Puppids will still be producing a reasonable amount of meteors. That comes up to an actual peak until 1:30 UTC through from about midnight UTC. Then it starts to trail off, still producing a reasonable number up until about 8am, 8:30 UTC. So that’s the Puppids, the π-Puppids.

If you are lower on the Earth, if you are closer to the equator, or really if you’re in the Southern hemisphere, you should see some Puppids, but the same way that we’re not seeing a lot of Orion by the time we’re through to late April, we won’t see many Puppids. If we get rid of the atmosphere, the radiant of the Puppids is just below Canis Major and Orion, they’re all in a pretty similar location in the sky. Bringing back the ground and the atmosphere leaves a lot of those things too close to the Sun at sunset for us to see. Capella is visible because it’s circumpolar to us here in Ireland, so it’ll stay visible when the sky is dark. Puppis, I don’t think is circumpolar for most areas in the Southern hemisphere, so that’s going to be a little bit of a trickier meteor shower to make the best of but it is there for anyone in the Southern hemisphere.

Again, the April Lyrids are the main meteor shower that we’re coming up against in April. Really for everyone, the April Lyrids are a bigger, more productive meteor shower. Even in reasonably high southern latitudes, if you’re not too far below the equator, you should still catch some Lyrids. Whereas the π-Puppids, they’re not as productive no matter where you are and just because of where they are and the time of year, it’s really not an ideal meteor shower for us to catch. Either way, I hope that you do get to see some shooting stars on these dates. If you don’t, at least you know that these meteor showers aren’t great, maybe you know why you’re not going to see too many meteors on these dates. Still, it’s always worth going and taking a look at the sky, there are always random shooting stars, so you never know what you might see. I hope that you enjoyed this piece. If you did then please do like it. If you like this kind of content, then please subscribe to this website and my YouTube channel Thank you very much for reading and hopefully I’ll see you back here next time.