Spaceweather.com - 4/24/13

For the past few days, Earth has been passing through a stream of debris from ancient Comet Thatcher, source of the annual Lyrid meteor shower. According to international observers, the encounter produced as many as 25 meteors per hour. Some of these were fireballs. NASA's All Sky Fireball Network detected more than 30 Lyrids as bright as Venus on the nights around the shower's April 22nd peak. Here are their orbits:

In the diagram, the red splat marks the location of Earth; green elipses are the orbits of the meteoroids, triangulated by multiple cameras in the meteor network.

Space Weather - 4/17/13

Earth is entering a stream of debris from ancient Comet Thatcher, source of the annual Lyrid Meteor Shower. Usually the shower is mild (10-20 meteors per hour) but unmapped filaments of dust in the comet's tail sometimes trigger outbursts ten times stronger. Forecasters expect the peak to occur on April 21-22. Photographer Jeff Berkes caught this early-arriving Lyrid during a deep exposure of the Milky Way on April 14th:

"On the night I saw this meteor, I had been traveling for days while sleeping out of my car as I continue my dark sky projects," says Berkes. "Watching a meteor fall right through the middle of your frame is the best! In addition to this Lyrid over the swamps of Maryland, I was also able to capture a couple of Lyrids over the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse and the Bodie Island Lighthouse. This is a good sign that the Lyrids are coming!"

Link: Spaceweather.com