Meteor showers Lyrids
Lyrids
The shower with the longest written record
A spring shower recorded for more than two thousand years, with occasional brief outbursts.
- Active period
- 14 April to 30 April
- Usual maximum
- Around 22 April
- ZHR under ideal skies
- About 18
01 / Overview
Meet Lyrids
The Lyrids peak in late April at a dozen or so meteors an hour in an ordinary year, but they are among the earliest showers humans wrote down: a Chinese record from 687 BCE describing stars falling like rain is generally read as this shower. Their parent is a long-period comet with a period of about 415 years.
Occasional outbursts
Lyrid rates are not steady. In 1803, 1922 and 1982 they briefly approached a hundred an hour, probably because Earth happened to cross a denser filament within the stream. Such outbursts are hard to predict in advance, which adds a little suspense to watching in an ordinary year.
A parent comet that returns once in four centuries
Comet C/1861 G1 (Thatcher) last passed perihelion in 1861 and will not return until the 23rd century. What we see each April is dust it shed on earlier passages, still slowly spreading along the orbit.
02 / Key data
Core parameters
- Active period
- 14 April to 30 April
- Usual maximum
- Around 22 April
- ZHR under ideal skies
- About 18
- Parent body
- Comet C/1861 G1 (Thatcher)
- Recurrence
- Late April, every year
Data and calculation notes
Active periods, peak dates and rates are multi-year averages; each year differs a little, so plan against the forecast issued for the year in question.
03 / Observing tips
How to watch
- The radiant rises high after midnight, so the later hours are best.
- Lyrids are moderately bright; the brighter members show even from the edge of a city.
- In years when the peak meets a full Moon, moonlight cuts the visible rate sharply.
04 / Sources