2023-04-22 23:09:14
With a bit of luck we can enjoy extra shooting stars tonight with the naked eye. In clear weather, possibly about fifteen per hour thanks to the meteor shower Lyriden that passes the earth, Weerplaza reports.
The Lyrids meteor shower peaks on Sunday. Even though clouds will move over our country next night, according to weatherman Raymond Klaassen it will not be a closed cloud cover. “It is therefore possible to see something when it clears up,” he says. To observe as much of the celestial dome as possible, he recommends lying down in a lawn chair. “The nights can still be cold, so dress warmly if you’re going to sit still for so long.”
The best time to gaze at the sky is around 4 a.m. The chance of spotting shooting stars is greatest if you look east in a dark place. In the night from Sunday to Monday there are also more shooting stars than usual. Cloud fields can then throw a spanner in the works again, warns Klaassen.
According to him, we should not expect large numbers of meteors (shooting stars). The Lyrids is a ‘modest swarm’ that is more active on average about once every 60 years. “The meteors move along the firmament at about 47 kilometers per second,” explains the weatherman. “This year the moon is not a problem because it is only 10 percent illuminated and during the peak it is already below the horizon.”
Origin
The Lyrids appear to have originated in the constellation Lyre, named after the portable, harp-like instrument of ancient Greek musician and poet Orpheus. Small in stature, the constellation stands high in the late night sky dome, well over 60 degrees above the southeast horizon.
The meteor shower is the result of comet C1861 G1 Thatcher. It travels around the sun in 415 years, making it a long-period comet. The Lyrids were spotted by Chinese astronomers some 2,700 years ago.
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