How did this year’s Lyrids perform?

During the last week, our planet has been passing through debris from Comet Thatcher, source of the annual Lyrid meteor shower. On the nights around April 22^nd, while the peak of this years meteor shower was, All Sky Fireball Network (NASA) reported more than 30 Lyrids as bright as Venus. International observers registered as many as 25 meteors per hour.

Here is a diagram of the orbits of Lyrids detected by NASA’s All Sky Fireball network:

The red splat in this diagram marks the location of Earth, the orbits of the meteoroids are green ellipses, triangulated by multiple cameras in the meteor network.

During the last week, our planet has been passing through debris from Comet Thatcher, source of the annual Lyrid meteor shower. On the nights around April 22^nd, while the peak of this years meteor shower was, All Sky Fireball Network (NASA) reported more than 30 Lyrids as bright as Venus. International observers registered as many as 25 meteors per hour.

Here is a diagram of the orbits of Lyrids detected by NASA’s All Sky Fireball network:

Astrophotographer B. G. Boyd  took this photo of a Lyrid meteor over Tucson, Arizona,  on April 22, 2013 (Credit: B.G. Boyd)

This years Lyrid fireballs penetrated Earth’s atmosphere as deeply as 44 miles above the planet’s surface, flying at an average speed of 105,000 mph, says Cooke.

The annual shower is past its climax now and is subsiding as Earth leaves the debris stream.

Source: SpaceWeather

Featured image: Astrophotographer Jonathan S. McElvery sent in a photo of a Lyrid meteor over Westborough, US, taken April 22, 2013.