The Lyrids, the first significant spring rain from “shooting stars”, will peak in the sky of the northern hemisphere, where Greece is located, on the night of Thursday 22 April, at dawn on Friday 23 April.
Lyrids are considered to be moderate in intensity “rain”, which usually falls between April 16-25.
At the peak of the phenomenon, up to 20 meteors per hour entering the Earth’s atmosphere are recorded, moving at a speed of about 50 kilometers. They are usually bright, shooting stars with long tails that remain visible anywhere in the sky for a few seconds. In some years, the number of “shooting stars” reached 100 per hour.
So, most likely, you will have time to make a wish … Don’t miss the moment!
Why is there a starfall?
Let’s define what is a starfall according to astronomers? The name of this phenomenon can be misleading. The stars do not fly from heaven to earth at all, as one might think.
In astronomy, starfalls are called meteor showers, and they are formed by numerous meteors. These are pieces and fragments of comets flying into the atmosphere of our planet and burning in it. Their footprints in the sky are like shooting stars. In terms of the Lyrid meteor shower, it happens when our planet passes through the trail of particles from Comet Thatcher. From the Earth, it will seem that the point from where the meteors are flying is in the constellation Lyra.
But in reality, the meteor shower has nothing to do with this constellation, it just bears its name and occurs in the same part of the sky.
Lyrid history
The earliest mention of Lyrid’s starfall is associated with 687 BC. They wrote about him in a book of ancient China called “Zuo Zhuan”. The Chinese were in awe of the meteor shower, which is not surprising. After all, the intensity of the Lyrid in those early years was much higher than today.
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