Lyrid meteor shower
The sky on the Lyrids' peak night from 40° north, at the hour their radiant near Vega, in Lyra stands highest, the view turned to it and ringed. Lyrids can flash anywhere across that sky; traced backward, every one of them points to the ring.
Under this, worked out as the page is served: the Lyrids' coming peak night and how much of the Moon is lit then, whether they're active now, the hour their radiant is highest, and their peaks in the years after. At best they give about 18 an hour; their source is Comet Thatcher (C/1861 G1).
Lyrids 2027
- Peakthe night of 22–23 Apr 2027, at up to 18 meteors an hour under a dark sky with the radiant overhead
- Moon96% lit at the peak (full Moon): a bright Moon that will hide all but the brightest meteors
- Nownot active yet: it starts around 14 Apr
- Radianthighest around 4 AM by the Sun’s clock (an hour later in summer time), 84° up from 40° north
- Next years21 Apr 2028 (Moon 8% lit), 22 Apr 2029 (Moon 54% lit)
Peaks from the Sun’s position at each (the International Meteor Organization’s calendar), worked out with astronomy-engine as this page was served.
How to read it
The Lyrids are the oldest shower on record: Chinese chroniclers described stars falling like rain in 687 BC, which matches their date. They come from Comet Thatcher, which takes about 415 years to go around the Sun and was last near it in 1861, so the stream it laid down is old and spread out.
Most years bring a steady 15 to 20 meteors an hour at best, swift at 49 km a second, some leaving glowing trains for a second or two. Now and then the Earth meets a denser clump: Americans counted around 90 an hour in 1982. The radiant, next to the bright blue-white star Vega, rises in the northeast in mid-evening and is high by the small hours.
Questions
When is the best time to see the Lyrids?
After midnight on the peak night, until dawn begins, when Vega and the radiant stand high in the east. Before that the radiant is low, and many of the meteors that would come from it are hidden below the horizon.
Are the Lyrids worth watching?
They are a modest shower, so go in with modest hopes: one every few minutes from a dark site. They are also the first real shower after three quiet months, the nights are milder than at the January Quadrantids, and an unexpected outburst is always possible.
Where do I look for the Lyrids?
Not at the radiant itself but around 40° from it, wherever your sky is darkest and widest: the meteors there have longer trails. Traced back, each one points to the ringed spot beside Vega that the view opens on.
Sources
The same view as a link: livex.earth/?clouds=0&radar=0&imerg=0&sats=off&launches=0&aurora=0&storms=0&severe=0&fires=0&quakes=0&lightning=0&events=0&snow=0&tsunami=0&view=sky&lat=40&shower=lyrids
Drag to look around, scroll to zoom. Settings live in the URL, so any view can be shared.
view | fixed · sunrel · orbit · moon · track |
track | what to follow: iss, tiangong, satgus (Mark Rober's Space Selfie satellite), launch, sunrise, moonrise |
lat, lon | viewer position (fixed) or offset from the subsolar point (sunrel) |
period, inc | orbit period (hours) and inclination (°) |
dist | viewer distance in Earth radii; 0 = orthographic |
mag, rot | size and rotation (°) |
wait | seconds between redraws (default 60) |
time, speed | ISO start time; clock multiplier |
clouds, lights, grid, markers, label | 0 or 1 |
borders | Country borders (Natural Earth), the disputed and undefined ones dashed, and once zoomed in, the countries’ names and the states’ and provinces’ lines, off by default (key B) |
terminator | The day–night line (Sun on the horizon), with the twilight band’s edges dashed: the Sun 6° up and 6° down, off by default (key Z) |
stars | 1, 0, or photo (dimmed like a camera exposed for sunlit Earth) |
sats | all (Starlink + named), featured, or 0 |
aurora, storms, fires, quakes | 0 hides that layer (keys A H F E) |
buoys, buoy | Buoys on the globe, off by default (key Shift+B); buoy=46026 opens that buoy’s window. Click a buoy to open it. |
meteors | The last day’s meteors (Global Meteor Network), recent fireballs and the coming close approaches (NASA/JPL), off by default (key Shift+M) |
iono | Ionosphere wash: tec electron content (GloTEC), drap HF radio absorption (D-RAP), or 0 (key Shift+I) |
lightning, events, snow | lightning, GDACS floods/wildfires/eruptions with NASA's flood map and USGS's US volcano alert levels, snow and ice (keys L D I) |
sst | Sea temperature: temp, anomaly (El Niño, marine heatwaves; 1 means this), or 0 (key O) |
lst | Land surface temperature (VIIRS, MODIS): auto the afternoon’s by day and the night’s by night (1 means this), day, night, or 0 (key Shift+K) |
soil | Soil moisture (SMAP L4): surface the top 5 cm (1 means this), root the root zone to 1 m, or 0 (key Shift+W) |
chl | Chlorophyll-a (MODIS Aqua, Terra), the last eight days: 1 or 0 (key Shift+O; off by default) |
aerosol | Aerosols: aod VIIRS optical depth (1 means this), index the OMPS UV aerosol index, smoke and dust, or 0 (key Shift+Y; off by default) |
waves, wavesrc | Wave height and direction (NOAA GFS-Wave, WAVEWATCH III) as trails that travel with the waves, coloured by height: 1 or 0 (off by default); folder holding its latest.json |
currents, currentsrc | Ocean surface currents (NASA OSCAR, a daily mean, two or three days behind) as trails carried by them, coloured by speed: 1 or 0 (off by default; key Q cycles waves → currents → both → off); folder holding its latest.json |
coral, coralsrc | Coral bleaching heat stress (NOAA Coral Reef Watch degree heating weeks), drawn within 35° of the equator: 1 or 0 (key Shift+R; off by default); folder holding its latest.json |
ash | volcanic ash: EUMETSAT's Ash RGB, and GDACS's eruptions in a window (key Shift+A; off by default) |
radar, smoke, tsunami | RainViewer radar, NOAA HMS smoke, NOAA tsunami alerts (keys R Y Shift+T) |
imagery | live GOES and MTG pictures by day, daily yesterday’s VIIRS when zoomed in, painted neither; with live or daily, the newest night’s lights when zoomed in (key Shift+P; the older truecolor=0/1 still works) |
severe | Severe weather: NWS warning polygons and the SPC day-1 outlook (US), MeteoAlarm's warnings (Europe) (key X) |
imerg | With the radar, satellite rain where there’s no radar: EUMETSAT H SAF (MTG) over Europe and Africa, NASA IMERG elsewhere (R’s middle step turns it off) |
relief | terrain lit by the real Sun, from NOAA ETOPO 2022 (key Shift+E); 0 shows NASA's fixed shaded relief |
reliefscale | terrain relief strength, 0.1–5 (default 1) |
isslive | NASA ISS telemetry panel: track (while tracking the ISS), 1 (always) or 0 (key Shift+L) |
isscam | 1 opens the camera in the ISS telemetry: the station from 120 m above, its solar arrays posed from the live telemetry, and the Earth below (the wheel zooms it, 30–120°) |
firehours | show fires detected within this many hours, 1–24 (default 12) |
launches | 0 hides launch mode (key U) |
bodies, bodyscale | Sun and Moon on/off; enlarge their discs (1 = true size) |
fps | 1 shows the frame-rate display (key ~) |
feeds | 1 shows the data-feeds dashboard: each source's last update and next check (key Shift+U) |
cloudsrc, satsrc | folders holding each latest.json |
