The June Lyrids meteor shower
Key facts
- Peak
- around 15–16 June, in rare years
- Active
- about 11–21 June, when it appears
- Rate at peak (ZHR)
- usually none; up to about 5 in active years
- Speed
- 31 km/s
- Radiant
- Lyra (a few degrees south of Vega)
- Parent body
- Unknown
Dates shift slightly from year to year. This year's peak is in the events calendar, and the meteor-shower planner shows how high the radiant climbs from where you live, night by night.
The June Lyrids are a puzzling northern shower that seemed to come and go. They are worth knowing about because they show how hard it can be to prove a weak shower is real.
History. Observers in the northern hemisphere reported a small shower from Lyra in mid-June during the 1960s and 1970s. Some meteors were reported again in 1996. Since then there has been little firm evidence of activity. Published positions for the radiant disagree with one another, which is often a sign that a shower is weak, variable or partly the result of chance groupings of sporadic meteors.
The June Lyrids are not on the international working list of established visual showers. They are best treated as a possible minor stream that may give brief activity in some years, perhaps when Earth passes through a denser part of a dust trail.
The radiant. The reported radiant is a few degrees south of Vega, the brilliant star of Lyra, and drifts slightly over the activity period. Lyra is high in the sky in the early hours of June nights from the UK.
What to expect. In most years nothing obvious. If activity occurs, it would be a few medium-speed meteors an hour at most. The famous Lyrids of April come from the same region of sky but are a separate, well-established shower from comet Thatcher.
Why watch? Weak and doubtful showers are settled by careful, repeated observation. Video cameras, which record the exact path of each meteor, are now the best tool, because orbits can be compared to see whether meteors genuinely share a common origin.
Viewing. Northern observers are best placed, though midsummer twilight in Scotland and northern England hides faint meteors. Further south, in southern Europe or the United States, nights are darker in June.
Viewing tips
- Find Vega, the bright blue-white star high in the east after dark.
- Plot any meteor you see on a chart to check whether it comes from near Vega.
- Use a meteor camera if possible; recorded orbits can confirm or rule out the shower.
- Watch around the darkest part of the night, near 1 am local summer time.
- Record nights with no activity too, as they help to judge whether the shower exists.