Lyrids Meteor Shower 2022: When Can You See the Shooting Stars?
Date, Maximum, Visibility
Created: 07/03/2022, 16:04
Lyrid meteor shower in the night sky © Daniel Reinhardt / dpa
The Lyrids are annual meteor showers.
It makes for a spectacular sight in the spring sky in April.
Offenbach am Main – If the German Weather Service announces a clear night sky in mid-April, there is a good chance of being able to observe the meteor shower in Central Europe and thus also in Germany.
Lyrids: background and facts
Shooting stars can be observed sporadically throughout the year.
They occur more frequently on a few days or periods of the year.
The phenomenon is known as a meteor shower, meteor shower, or shooting star swarm.
These are usually dust particles from resolved comets.
Meteor showers occur when the Earth approaches the path of a comet in its orbit around the Sun.
Comets lose some of their mass as they get closer to the sun.
This is how gases, dust and other particles spread over the comet's orbit over thousands of years.
Showers like the Lyrids therefore usually return annually to the point where the earth crosses the area of this cloud of matter.
The "mother comet" and thus origin of the Lyrids is C/1861 G1 (Thatcher).
It takes 415 years to orbit the sun.
In April 1861 he had himself observed from Earth with the naked eye.
The orbits of the celestial bodies appear to come from a vanishing point in the sky called the radiant.
In the case of the Lyrids, the radiant is in the constellation Lyra;
from this circumstance the name of the meteor shower is derived.
Lyrids: History Basics
The Lyrids were observed thousands of years ago.
The first records come from the Zuozhuan, an early work on Chinese history from 687 BC.
Accordingly, “stars fell like rain from the sky”.
Over the course of history, the strength of the shower changed regularly.
For example, the ZHR (Zenithal Hourly Rate, the number of meteors that can be observed within one hour by a person under certain conditions) was 100 in 1922. The last significant increase in activity was in 1982.
At that time, 90 shooting stars per hour were counted.
At times the number rose to 300.
The Lyrids currently have a ZHR of 18.
Lyrids: Visibility information
Lyrid shooting stars are said to be particularly fast.
They penetrate the earth's atmosphere at around 50 kilometers per second or 180,000 kilometers per hour and burn up.
Also known as the April Lyrids, meteor showers are among the most powerful of their kind and generally have good visibility.
They can be observed from April 14th to 30th.
They reach their maximum on April 22nd.
In 2022, optimal visibility is expected on the night of April 22nd to 23rd.
Up to 20 shooting stars per hour can be seen on this date.
In addition, there are other shooting star showers that originate in the Lyra constellation:
the Eta Lyrids (May 3-14)
the June Lyrids (June 11-21)
However, both showers are only faintly visible.
The best time for observing meteor showers, and thus the April Lyrids, is just before dawn.
Individual shooting stars can be observed from midnight.
Lyrids: Where to see the shooting stars
In Germany, the visibility of the Lyrids is possible under optimal weather conditions.
They can be observed in the entire northern hemisphere of the earth as well as in the middle latitudes of the southern hemisphere - and thus also in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
In addition to the Lyrids, the chances of a meteor shower are high on the following dates, among others:
January (Quadrantids)
May to July (Arietids)
July and August (Perseids)
November (Leonids)
For the observation you should always go to a place with as little light as possible and get your eyes used to the darkness for about 20 minutes.
