[Lady Jane]

The Lyrid meteor shower peaking this week-end.

On the night of April 14, as Earth travelled along its orbit around the Sun, the planet slipped into a fast-moving stream of icy debris left behind by an ancient comet known as C/1861 G1 (Thatcher).

As these bits of comet debris began plunging into the atmosphere, they produced streaks of light in the sky and marked the beginning of the annual Lyrid meteor shower.

The Lyrids typically start off fairly quiet, with only a handful of meteors streaming out of the constellation Lyra each night for the first week of the meteor shower.

However, on the night of April 21-22 we pass through the densest part of comet Thatcher's debris stream.

That is when the Lyrid meteor shower reaches its peak, producing around 20 meteors per hour throughout the night.