The Lyrids meteor shower will dazzle stargazers this weekend with up to 18 meteors per hour

Star gazers will be greeted with up to 18 meteors per hour when the Lyrid meteor shower lights up the sky on Saturday morning.

The celestial display is expected to peak in the early hours of April 23 and will be visible across the entire sky.

Meteor showers, or shooting stars, occur when pieces of debris known as meteorites enter Earth’s atmosphere at speeds of around 43 miles per second, burn up, and cause beams of light.

The Lyrid meteor shower takes its name from the constellation of Lyra, where shooting stars seem to originate from.

These meteors are bits of debris falling from Comet Thatcher, which is expected to return to the inner solar system in 2276, after an orbital period of 415 years.

The shooting stars appear to originate in the constellation of Lyra, but will be visible across the entire sky.

As with all meteor showers, in order to see the Lyrids you need to find a dark spot with a clear view of the sky.

How many meteors people might see will depend on a variety of things, from the time of night to the level of backlight.

A bright sky will drown out the fainter ones making them much harder to see.

However, this year the Lyrids began on April 14, two days before the full Moon, and peak on April 22 and 23, two days before the last quarter of the Moon, so conditions are unfavorable. .

Jacob Foster, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, said: “The Lyrid meteor shower is one of the main meteor showers of the year.

Meteors will be scattered across the sky, so simply looking northeast on the night of the 22nd should be enough to see some for yourself.

‘Make sure you have a clear view of the sky to maximize your chances of seeing them.

“At its peak, we can expect to see up to 18 shooting stars per hour.

“You won’t need any kind of specialized viewing equipment, just clear skies and warm clothing.”

And if stargazers miss the exhibit, or just haven’t had enough of exploring the sky, there’s still plenty to look at when Jupiter, Venus, Mars, Saturn and the Moon line up along the horizon on Sunday.

Multiple exposures were combined to produce this image of the Lyrid meteor shower over Niederhollabrunn, Austria, in April 2020. The meteors streak across the sky at speeds of approximately 110,000 mph.

Jupiter, Venus, Mars, Saturn and the Moon will line up on the horizon on Sunday

The best viewing window is between 5am and 6am (BST), just after the planets rise above the horizon but just before the Sun follows them.

Even though they appear to be aligned from Earth, these types of alignments, sometimes known as planetary parades, occur only from our perspective here on Earth, and are not actually aligned in space.

The planets will be visible to the naked eye and no specialized equipment is needed.

“Venus will be remarkably the brightest of the four planets, shining bright white light,” Jake Foster, an astronomical education officer at the Royal Museums Greenwich, told MailOnline.

‘Jupiter will be the second brightest, also bright white. Saturn will be clearly fainter than the other three, because it is so much farther from the Sun.

“Mars will have the most distinctive difference from the others due to its coloration, appearing as a bright orange point of light to the naked eye.”

The last time Saturn, Jupiter, Mars and Venus lined up like this was in 2020, and before that in 2016 and 2005.