Lyrid meteor viewing window
- The 2026 Lyrid meteor shower has passed its sharp peak, but the shower remains active through April 30, giving skywatchers on April 25 a fading final weekend to catch stray meteors before dawn. - Space & Telescope and Timeanddate say the Lyrids peaked overnight April 21–22, with about 18 meteors an hour under dark skies, as the waxing crescent Moon set before midnight. - NASA says the shower comes from Comet Thatcher debris, and April 2026 offered unusually dark viewing conditions compared with many recent years. (science.nasa.gov)
The Lyrid meteor shower is past its peak, but it is still active through April 30 and can still produce a few meteors before dawn on April 25. (spaceandtelescope.com) (timeanddate.com) Meteor showers happen when Earth crosses a stream of dust left by a comet, and the Lyrids come from Comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher. Those dust grains hit Earth’s atmosphere at high speed and burn up as the “shooting stars” people see from the ground. (science.nasa.gov 1) (science.nasa.gov 2) This year’s Lyrids were active from April 14 to April 30, with the main peak on the night of April 21 into April 22. Space & Telescope put the predicted peak near 20:00 Coordinated Universal Time on April 22, while EarthSky listed 19:15 Coordinated Universal Time. (spaceandtelescope.com) (earthsky.org) For viewers in the United States, that timing meant the best chance came in the pre-dawn hours of Tuesday, April 22, before the formal peak passed later in the day. NASA said to start looking east around 10 p.m. on April 21 and keep watching through the night. (science.nasa.gov) (earthsky.org) Under ideal dark skies, observers could expect about 18 meteors an hour at peak, though EarthSky gave a more conservative range of 10 to 15 per hour. Both sources said the Lyrids can also throw occasional brighter fireballs. (timeanddate.com) (earthsky.org) April 2026 was a favorable year because the Moon was only a waxing crescent and set before midnight near peak viewing hours. That left darker skies after midnight, when the radiant near Vega in Lyra climbed higher and the odds improved. (spaceandtelescope.com) (earthsky.org) The shower also got an orbit-side view this week. NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, now on the International Space Station as commander of SpaceX Crew-12, photographed a Lyrid from about 250 miles above Earth on April 20, according to widely circulated reports. (nasa.gov) (yahoo.com) The Lyrids are one of the oldest recorded meteor showers, with observations going back more than 2,700 years and Chinese records from 687 B.C. NASA and Space & Telescope both trace the shower’s source to Comet Thatcher, which takes about 415 years to orbit the Sun. (science.nasa.gov) (spaceandtelescope.com) By April 25, the main show is over, but the rule for late stragglers is the same: get away from city lights, give your eyes 15 to 20 minutes to adjust, and look up before dawn. (timeanddate.com)
