Spring is officially here and that means it's meteor shower season!

Meteor Showers

You know the saying "One man's trash is another man's treasure?"  That's kind of what a meteor shower is.  While the meteors we see during meteor showers aren't exactly "trash" they are debris such as particles from a disintegrating comet.  Who knew debris could be so pretty?

The American Meteor Society breaks down what exactly causes a meteor shower.

A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth’s atmosphere at extremely high speeds on parallel trajectories. Most meteors are smaller than a grain of sand, so almost all of them disintegrate and never hit the Earth’s surface. Intense or unusual meteor showers are known as meteor outbursts and meteor storms, which may produce greater than 1,000 meteors an hour.

 

Spring is the Start of Meteor Shower Season

If you enjoy sky gazing and want to catch a meteor shower this year, now is the time to start planning your skywatching nights.

According to Farmer's Almanac, spring is really when meteor shower season starts to pop off.

Meteor shower season begins in the spring and ends in the winter. When gardens and wildlife wake up from winter’s sleep it’s as if the shooting stars do too—decorating the night with bright streaks! From the Lyrids to the Perseids, Geminids to the Quadrantids, each meteor shower has its own special charm.As the year goes on, these showers come and go, their brightness increasing and decreasing. By the time January comes, the sky quiets down, and the major meteor showers seem to take a break.

 

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When is the First Meteor Shower of Spring?

If you want to catch the first big meteor shower of the year, you'll want to try to catch a glimpse of the Lyrids Meteor Shower.  The Lyrids Meteor Shower will peak around April 21st to the 22nd, and you should be able to catch about 10-20 meteors per hour.  Farmer's Almanac recommends looking to the east overhead between 2 AM and 4 AM. You can learn more about Lyrids and the other meteor showers that will happen this year, here.