Lyrid Stars: When and how to see one of the oldest astronomical phenomena in the world
This April, fans of astronomy have the opportunity to observe an ancestral show that always occurs in the spring: the rainy rain, which has More than 2600 years. His activity is moderate compared to other phenomena, but its brightness is shocking, so this phenomenon is one of the most awaited events for observers.
“Lyed began to be studied in the middle of the North century. Then it was discovered that The Chinese began to study in the seventh century before our era. Nobody until now had identified them as a celestial phenomenon, “the astrophysicist of Javier Armentia and the scientific widespread told Onder Zero.
Produces them El Cometa c/1861 Thatchercalled in honor of its discoverer. They are always observed in the spring because the orbit that crosses the earth around the sun is the same and “makes us pass more or less in the same dates through a region of the solar system through which a comet or an asteroid usually travels through its orbit”.
When it is the rain of the Lyed stars
This year, the rain of the Lyed stars can be seen “from 15 to 29 April”, although “The maximum is April 22ndSo that night, the previous one and the rear can be seen “better than in the previous days. In these days, Armedia explains, the earth is going through an area in which there is likely that there are fragments of comet that, in turn, turn around the sun.
One of the characteristics of these meteors is Its great speed: 50 kilometers per second. “We carry on them, so to speak, and we enter the high -speed atmosphere, 50 kilometers per second, or what is the same, 180,000 kilometers per hour”, according to the astrophysicist.
How and what now you see Lyed
It is advisable to “look for a clear and dark site e light contamination“Although this year because of the rain and the cloudy skies planned, it is the same to see them. The phase in which the Moon is also important is also important.” He is decreasing. Therefore, the best time to see them will be Around midnight“Insurance in Armedia.
Furthermore, it is not difficult to see them why “the constellation of the lira is easy to identify, since it contains One of the brightest stars in the sky: Vega“But if someone does not insert it yet in heaven, you can always resort to any application on the mobile phone that indicates the constellations.
And one more fact, because it commonly seems to call fleeting stars, come to us? To explain it, Armedia compares them with the fall of the snow: “The stars seem to come from the constellation. It is like when we go by car and it seems that the bows come to us. The car is the earth and the flakes of Lyid”.
