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Explanation: Earth's April showers include the Lyrid Meteor Shower, observed for more than 2,000 years when the planet makes its annual passage through the dust stream of long-period Comet Thatcher. A grain of that comet's dust, moving 48 kilometers per second at an altitude of 100 kilometers or so, is swept up in this night sky view from the early hours of April 21. Flashing toward the southeastern horizon, the meteor's brilliant streak crosses the central region of the rising Milky Way. Its trail points back toward the shower's radiant in the constellation Lyra, high in the northern springtime sky...

Explanation: Earth's annual Lyrid meteor shower peaked before dawn on April 22nd, as our fair planet plowed through dust from the tail of long-period comet Thatcher. Even in the dry and dark Atacama desert along Chile's Pacific coast, light from a last quarter Moon made the night sky bright, washing out fainter meteor streaks. But brighter Lyrid meteors still put on a show. Captured in this composited earth-and-sky view recorded during early morning hours, the meteors stream away from the shower's radiant near Vega, alpha star of the constellation Lyra. The radiant effect is due to perspective as the parallel...

Speaking to SpaceWeather.com, Bill Cooke, head of NASA’s MEO office says, “The energy is estimated at a whopping 3.8 kilotons of TNT, so this was a big event,” he continues. “I am not saying there was a 3.8 kiloton explosion on the ground in California. I am saying that the meteor possessed this amount of energy before it broke apart in the atmosphere. [The map] shows the location of the atmospheric breakup, not impact with the ground.” The event that rattled windows, set off car alarms and glaringly bright enough to be seen in early morning daylight was also recorded...

The sky will be dark and moonless for at least three hours before the first light of dawn on Sunday morning, April 22, when the annual Lyrid meteor shower is due to reach its peak. The shower remains above one-half of its peak strength for about a day or two, centered on the shower’s maximum. The meteors are called “Lyrids” because their paths, if extended backward, appear to diverge from a spot in the sky not too far to the southwest of the brilliant bluish-white star Vega, in the constellation of Lyra the Lyre. Within a day on either side...