It may appear to the Chicken Littles of the world that the sky is falling, but it’s actually just the Lyrid meteor shower.
The annual shower is caused by debris from a comet that once crossed the earth’s orbit. The U’s South Observatory with the Department of Physics and Astronomy promoted the event Wednesday night so students could witness it. For those who missed it, the meteor shower can be seen again tonight (Thursday).
Paul Ricketts, the South Physics Observatory manager and an AstronomUr Outreach staff member, said it’s called the Lyrid shower because it starts from the Lyra constellation. A shower such as this, he said, can have five to 20 meteors radiating out per hour. The streaks people see are the pieces of debris burning in the atmosphere.
For the best view of the shower, Ricketts recommends visiting the east Uinta Mountains or the west part of Skull Valley around 2 a.m. — the darkest part of the night.
“The best place to watch the meteor showers are usually somewhere extremely dark,” he said. “You should be far enough outside of the city’s dome of light pollution to see all the meteors the show has to offer.”
Ricketts also suggested not looking through binoculars or telescopes because the meteors fall too fast for the limited scope of sight those instruments offer.
If your Thursday night is too packed with finals and studying, Ricketts said not to worry.
“There are meteor showers every month,” he said. “If you miss this one, you’ll have more chances to see them.”
On the South Observatory’s site, web.utah.edu/astro, there is a monthly calendar showing the times and dates of future showers and tips to see them. The Eta Aquarids meteor shower, the next one to watch for, occurs on May 4 and 5.
Sally Goodger, a sophomore in English, was impressed by the Lyrid shower.
“I think there’s something beautiful about watching meteors fall,” she said. “It’s another way that we can reach into our universe and how our universe reaches out to us.”
@chriswritine