You'll Be Able to See a Meteor Shower This Saturday

An annual meteor shower will light the nighttime sky Saturday and possibly into Sunday morning.

Don't worry. It's not the kind that can destroy cities, create tidal waves over coastal areas or cause large patches of plant life to grow on human skin.

The Lyrid meteor shower is an annual collection of dust and rocks that come into contact with the Earth's atmosphere and burn up in the atmosphere long before they can even reach the ground, according to NASA.

The meteors usually reach Earth in mid-April. This year, they are expected to reach their peak viewing level Saturday night or Sunday morning this weekend. The shower will produce around 18 meteors per hour, according to NASA records.

Michael Rymer, the vice president of the Texas Astronomical Society of Dallas and a program associate for the nonprofit International Dark Sky Association, says the Lyrid meteors come from the tail of the Thatcher comet (aka C-1861 G1).

"It's not the most prolific meteor shower," Rymer says. "It only delivers about 5 to 20 meteors per hour during peak time, so you don't get your bang for your buck, but it's still one of the major meteor showers we get throughout the year."

Rymer recommends just looking at the meteors with the naked eye so you can see the whole scene as the meteors react to the atmosphere. The shower will take place near the constellation Lyra and the bright star of Vega in the northeast sky.

"What you want to do is go to a very dark place," Rymer says. "In a light-polluted town, you likely won't see the meteor shower. You have to get away from the lights."

The meteors are debris from the comet that burn up in the atmosphere. Since this is a smaller-than-average meteor shower, Rymer says we shouldn't expect any massive boulders toppling skyscrapers or destroying major cities.

"You'll see streaks of light through the sky, so it'll be very quick and they all come from the same direction," Rymer says. "These meteorites are very small specks of dust and rock, and they always burn up in the atmosphere. That's what produces the light."

The bigger meteor showers usually happen around early-to-mid-December with the Geminids shower and in mid-August with the Perseids shower, Rymer says.

"Those will yield 100 meteors at its peak hour and they're very bright," Rymer says. "The Lyrids, they're very bright too, but you still need to get out of town to see them." 

Rymer says you can use binoculars or a camera with a wide lens if you want to get a closer look, but the best way to watch them is just by looking up to the nighttime sky.

"It's best to see them all with the naked eye," Rymer says. "You really want to see the wide picture."