With the Earth having welcomed the month of April with a full Moon, several celestial events will follow that promise to provide a perfect reason to get out into the shortening spring nights.
Chief among these will be the opportunity to see the Lyrid meteor shower safe from the light of the Moon during the peak night of 22/23 April.
From a dark sky area, far from city lights, observers can spot up to 15 shooting stars per hour, which manifest to our eyes as streaking fireballs in the night sky. Far from being stars, they are actually fragments of the comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher.
Every year, the Earth passes through the comet’s orbit as if it were the wake of a motor boat. As the comet hurtles through the solar system, it sheds material like ice and dust, which burn up in Earth’s atmosphere during the special period we pass through that debris trail.
The Lyrids are one of the most active spring meteor showers, and with the Moon setting before midnight, it promises to be particularly showy this year.
Even though they originate with the comet Thatcher, they’re called the Lyrids because the point in the sky where it appears they originate from is found near the constellation Lyra. To find Lyra, all one need do is find the second-brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere: Vega.
Vega is so bright, it was the first star ever to be photographed: with a daguerreotype plate in 1850.
A few days before the Lyrids peak, a New Moon occurs on April 17th and presents as the perfect time to drive to a dark sky area and observe the Milky Way’s galactic core, which is highly visible during this month’s pre-dawn hours.
A truly dark sky, not only lacking a Moon, but any kind of significant light pollution from street lighting, is needed to see the galactic core, but the reward for making the drive out to such a rural area will be millions of stars and the beautiful band of white and grey across the sky: the perfect introduction to a young boy or girl to the true scope of the cosmos.
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