Lyrid meteors to be visible this week

Weather permitting, Bates County will provide some of the best seats in the house for the Lyrid meteor showers, which are peaking in activity now and will be visible through this week.

No larger than a grain of sand, the Lyrid meteors leave a
brief, bright streak in our night skies

The Lyrids, named for their location in the constellation Lyra, form as the Earth passes through the tail of Comet Thatcher. The meteors are bits of the comet's tail, usually no bigger than grains of sand that strike the atmosphere at 49 kilometers a second. As they travel through our atmosphere, they disintegrate as streaks of light, possibly casting a shadow before leaving behind smoke-like trail of debris.

"Lyrid meteors are typically as bright as the stars in the Big Dipper, which is to say, middling brightness, but some are more intense, even brighter than Venus,"  AccuWeather's Mark Paquette said earlier today as staffers have been monitoring the activity.

The "Lyrid fireballs" originate in the sky near the star Vega, Lyra's brightest star. Predawn hours offer the best view of the meteors as Vega sits nearly overhead. In the evenings the shower sits closer to the horizon, blocking many of them from view. The waxing moon will also light up the sky until after midnight, dimming the sight of the meteors. However, the moon sets before dawn, so its brightness will not hinder the view of the shower when it moves into its peak positional hours.

The last day to see the meteor shower until April 2014 will be this Thursday morning, April 26, with possible "stragglers" dotting the sky through Friday morning.

"The morning, predawn hours will continue to be best time [for viewing the Lyrids], but they will be visible at basically anytime," Paquette said. "For predawn, look overhead. Before midnight you want to face southeast. Because they are now off peak there will be fewer of them."

Locally, our forecast calls for skies to clear somewhat tomorrow night which should allow for viewing the Lyrids the remainder of the week.

Doug Mager