Lyrid Meteor Shower Peaks Overnight Thursday: How To Watch (2024)

The Lyrids peak is a perfect start to Earth Day in Pennsylvania. Known for fireballs, the meteor shower overlaps with the Eta Aquariids.

Posted Thu, Apr 15, 2021 at 11:08 am ET|Updated Wed, Apr 21, 2021 at 1:07 pm ET

There hasn’t been much beyond the ordinary to stare up at in the nighttime sky since the Quadrantid meteor shower that ushered in 2021. But that changes this month with the Lyrids, which started April 16 and run for two weeks through April 30.

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The Lyrids overlap with another meteor shower, the Eta Aquariids (sometimes spelled Aquarids), which will sprinkle some fast-moving meteors in the morning sky before their peak next month, and the first of three consecutive supermoons rises on April 27.

Heading outside the morning of Thursday, April 22, around moonset — that’s about 4:02 a.m. in the Philadelphia area, and 4:22 a.m. near Pittsburgh — for the Lyrid meteor shower peak is a perfect way to start your Earth Day celebration. Another good reason to wait for the early morning hours to stargaze: A 68 percent full moon will interfere with viewing in the evening and early nighttime hours.

At the peak, the Lyrids reliably produce 10 to 15 meteors an hour. That’s not a lot, but they are called the “Old Faithful of meteor showers” by Space.com because their peak usually lasts for several hours.

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And they’re known for a good number of fireballs — meteors with persistent trails of ionized gas that glow for a few seconds after the shooting star passes.

The Lyrids, among the oldest known meteor showers, are produced by particles shed by Comet 1861 G1 Thatcher, which last passed through the inner solar system in 1861 and won’t be back again until 2276.

As with all meteor showers, unless it’s dark where you live, it’s best to get out in the country away from city lights to get the best views. In Pennsylvania, think about a trip to Cherry Springs State Park, one of the nation's first International Dark Sky parks.

Take along a lounge chair so you can get a wide view of the sky, and don’t forget to pack a blanket to keep you warm during this celestial distraction. It’s spring, but it still gets chilly at night.

Space.com offers this helpful advice to locate the Lyrids:

“The paths of these meteors, if extended backward, seem to diverge from a spot in the sky about 7 degrees southwest (to the lower right) of the brilliant blue-white star Vega in the little constellation Lyra (hence the name ‘Lyrids’).

“Your clenched fist held at arm's length covers roughly 10 degrees of the sky. The radiant point is actually on the border between Lyra and the adjacent dim, sprawling constellation Hercules. Vega appears to rise from the northeast around 9 p.m. your local time, but by 4 a.m., it has climbed to a point in the sky nearly overhead.”

We’ll have more as the Eta Aquariids draw closer, but the monthlong shower that runs from April 27 to May 28 peaks May 4-6 with anywhere from 10 to 20 meteors an hour. The Eta Aquariid meteors are swift and produce a high percentage of persistent trains but few fireballs.

April 27 is also the first of three consecutive supermoons. The April full supermoon is known as the full pink moon, the sprouting grass moon, the growing moon, the egg moon or the fish moon.

As NASA explains it, a supermoon occurs when the moon’s orbit is closest (perigee) to Earth at the same time it is full. The closeness to Earth — keep in mind, our planet and moon are still 226,000 apart at this point — makes the moon appear a bit brighter and larger than usual.