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The Lyrids are a strong meteor shower lasting from April 15 to April 28 each year. The radiant of the meteor shower is located in the constellation Lyra. It peaks at April 22. The source of the meteor shower is the periodic Comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher. The Lyrids have been observed for the past 2600 years. Image File history File links Wiki_letter_w. ... Leonid Meteor Shower A meteor shower, also known as a meteor storm, is a celestial event where a large number of meteors are seen within a very short period. ... The radiant or apparent radiant of a meteor shower is the point in the sky that (to a planetary observer) meteors appear to originate from. ... For other uses, see Lyra (disambiguation). ... Comet Thatcher is a non-periodic comet responsible for the Lyrids Meteor shower. ...
^ Some sources claims it was March 16, which can't be right. First, March 16 they claimed was actually in proleptic Gregorian calendar; Second, it was not in summer as original text have described clearly.
The Lyrids are thought to be a very old meteoroid stream due to the fact that particles have spread out through the entire orbit, albeit somewhat unevenly.
The Lyrid meteoroid stream is steeply inclined at an angle about 80° to the ecliptic, which results in a fairly sharp peak each year.
The Lyrids are not considered to be a strong radio shower despite the favourable position of the radiant, which at +33° declination is above the horizon for more than 20 hours, similar to that of the Geminids.
The Lyrids are typically visible between 16th and 25th April with a maximum occuring during April 20-21 (Solar Longitude=31.4 deg), from an average radiant of RA=272 deg, DECL=+33 deg.
In 1971, Bertil-Anders Lindblad published a Lyrid stream orbit, which had a period of 131 years, that was based on 5 meteors photographed during 1952 and 1953, and, in 1970, Sekanina published a Lyrid stream orbit based on radio meteors which had an average period of 9.58 years.
The discrepancy in the orbital period of the Lyrids is primarily due to a lack of data.
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