The Lyrids are a meteor shower originating from the tail of Comet Thatcher.
Discovered by AE Thatcher in 1861, the comet is on a 422-year orbit around the sun and will not return to the inner solar system until 2283. Every year between April 15 and 29, the Earth meets the dust particles it left behind, with the peak of activity usually occurring on the night of April 22, leading into the 23rd. The chart shows the view looking north-east from London at 22.00 BST on 22 April. The meteors radiate from the area marked Lyrids and can shoot in any direction away from this point.
The shower typically features between five and 20 meteors per hour, with most having a respectable brightness – magnitude 2 – but a few rare cases becoming much brighter “fireballs”. Every 60 years or so, the Earth hits a particularly dense patch of the meteoroid stream and a Lyrid eruption occurs. In 1803, astronomers recorded up to 700 meteors per hour. The most recent eruption was in 1982, so another is not expected for several decades.
From the southern hemisphere, the constellation will reach its highest point in the northern sky around 2:00 am.
