ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) — The April Lyrids are back. This yearly meteor shower will be at its peak next Monday evening through Tuesday morning. KRQE spoke with a local expert Friday on what to know about it.
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Space Science Director Jim Greenhouse says the name of any meteor shower comes from the constellation the stars seem to be falling away from — in this case, Lyra. He tells us comets are basically “dirty snowballs in space,” and whenever they move, they leave behind ice and dust. When those pieces of ice and dust start getting pulled toward Earth, they burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere, and that’s when we see streaks of light.
With the Lyrids in particular, there’s a relatively short window of “peak” viewing time, although you can theoretically see them from April 15 to 29…