After The Blood Moon, A Shower Of Meteors

You can watch the annual Lyrid meteor shower from April 16-25.

The annual Lyrids meteor shower that began on Wednesday, April 16 can be viewed all over the world till April 25.

(NASA/MSFC/Danielle Moser)

A composite image of Lyrid and non-Lyrid meteors, seen over New Mexico from April 21-23, 2012.

The meteor shower will peak on the night of April 22 and the morning of April 23 during which 15 to 20 meteors will fly across the sky per hour, according to NASA.

NASA/JSC/Don Pettit

A Lyrid is captured flying over the earth at night in April 2012.

You can also spot Lyrids any night between the 16th and 25th. Since the Lyrids are known to produce bright meteors with persistent trains, they are visible in a clear, dark sky without a telescope.

NASA/youtube.com

The meteors will appear dusty and have bright lingering tails.

Find a spot away from light pollution, lie down, look up and you can't miss "the beautiful river of stars near Lyra — a spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy," said Jane Houston Jones of NASA.

This is one of the oldest known known meteor showers and is named after the constellation Lyra.

youtube.com

The point in the sky where the meteors seem to emerge from, known as the "radiant," lies near Vega which is one of the brightest stars in the sky during this time.

According to NASA:

Lyrids are pieces of debris from the periodic Comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher and have been observed for more than 2,600 years. In mid-April of each year, Earth runs into the stream of debris from the comet, which causes the Lyrid meteor shower.