Stunning Lyrids Meteor Shower and ‘Pink’ Moon Visible THIS Week – How to Watch

STARGAZERS have not one, but TWO celestial displays to look forward to in the days to come.

The Lyrids meteor shower and a pink full moon will both grace the night skies over the US and UK this week.

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Lyrid Meteor Shower

The dazzling Lyrids meteor shower is scheduled to begin on April 14, and you’ll be able to spot the shooting stars throughout the month.

This year’s show will run through April 30th and is scheduled to culminate on the night of April 22nd, when approximately 18 “shooting stars” will appear per hour.

This week you will only see a few sporadic meteors.

The Lyrids occur each April and occur when Earth’s orbit takes them through a comet’s tail.

The meteor shower consists of falling debris from Comet Thatcher.

It gets its name from the Lyra constellation as the meteors sometimes appear as if they are radiating from a location near that location.

You don’t necessarily have to be looking at a specific area, however, as the meteors can appear anywhere in the sky.

The Lyrid Shower is one of the oldest known, with records of visible meteors going back 2,700 years.

The best time to see the meteors is early in the morning or in the evening before moonrise.

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pink moon

This year’s Pink Moon will be visible on the evening of April 16, beginning about half an hour before sunset at 8:27 p.m

It should look bright and full in the sky, but doesn’t necessarily have to be pink.

The practice of naming full moons comes from Native American culture.

The tribes tracked the seasons with different names for each month’s full moon.

Since a lunar month is slightly shorter than our calendar months, the dates of the full moons shift slightly from year to year.

But the months they appear remain the same, and every year we see a Pink Moon in April.

The term comes from the moss-pink herb or wild ground phlox flower, which is widespread in spring.

Other names for this particular sphere are the Full Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon, or the Full Fish Moon.

Don’t necessarily expect it to look pink – in fact, it will look like any other full moon.

Make April 16th an evening to look for the Pink Moon, but expect it to look big for a few days around that date.

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