Stuck at home with clear skies? We’re all in a similar situation, as the ongoing pandemic sees most of the worldwide amateur astronomy community observing from home or from their backyard. One astronomical sure-fire event coming up this week requires no special equipment, just a set of working ‘Mk-1 eyeballs’ and a clear sky: the April Lyrids.
These springtime meteors get their name from the constellation Lyra, which also hosts the bright star Vega. The parallelogram shape of Lyra marks out the Lyre of Orpheus from Greek mythology, the musical instrument that the virtuoso played at the gates of Hades in an ill-fated attempt to win back Eurydice from the Underworld. Perhaps, we can imagine the Lyrids as the ‘Tears of Orpheus,’ sliding silently through the April sky.
The radiant for the 2020 Lyrids, actually located just across the border from the constellation Lyra in Hercules. Credit: The IMO.
The Curious History of the Lyrids
The April Lyrids are one of the oldest meteor showers recorded. Chinese historical records note that in the fourth month of 687 BC, “stars fell like rain.” The Lyrids were identified as a modern shower by Johann Gottfried Galle in 1867. The source of the April Lyrid meteors is comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher, which orbits the Sun every 415 years and is projected to return around 2280 AD.
Prospects for 2020
The Lyrids are a modest shower on most years, but are prone to occasional outbursts, most notably in 1803, 1922 and 1982, when rates topped 250 an hour. In 1803, a Richmond Virginia journalist noted “shooting stars… from one until three in the morning (that) seemed to fall from every point in the heavens…” clearly, the Lyrids harbor some intense storm clumps, that seem to show up every 60 years or so. Perhaps we’ll see an uptick in activity come ‘round 2040?
The Lyrids have a steep approach to the Earth, with a radiant declination located in the northern hemisphere at +32 degrees north. Their oncoming medium to swift velocity is 48 kilometers per second, fast as meteor showers go, about 25% of Lyrid meteors are fireballs leaving persistent trains, worth keeping binoculars handy for.
The position of the Earth’s shadow versus the Lyrid radiant, the Earth and Moon at the shower’s peak. Credit: Dave Dickinson/Orbitron.
2020 is an ideal year for the Lyrids. The peak arrives on the morning of Wednesday April 22nd at just past midnight Universal Time (UT, on the night of April 21/22), favoring Europe and the Middle East near dawn. The Moon is out of the scene, and reaches New just 24 hours after the shower’s peak.
The peak Zenithal Hourly Rate for the 2020 Lyrids is projected to top 20 meteors per hour. Keep in mind that the ZHR is an ideal maximum, what you would expect to see if the radiant is directly overhead under pristine dark skies. Most observers will see considerably less.
Lyrid captures from 2015. Image credit and copyright: Mary McIntyre.
Observing Lyrids
Watching a meteor shower is as simple as observing the sky with the naked eye and waiting… no special equipment needed. Meteors can appear anywhere in the sky, but a good rule of thumb is to actually look off to either side of the shower radiant, to catch the meteors in profile. Any Lyrids will trace their path through the sky back from the radiant in the constellation Lyra. Any that do not belong to other showers, or are sporadics.
The Lyrid radiant looking high to the east from latitude 35 degrees north on the morning of April 22nd. Credit: Stellarium.
Morning around
pre-dawn is always the best time to watch for meteors, as your
location on the Earth is turned headlong into the oncoming meteor
stream.
You can count how many Lyrids you see from your location and report the tally for the given span of time back to the International Meteor Organization. This is one way that amateur astronomers can contribute to our scientific understanding of meteor showers and the evolution of meteor streams.
Our humble DSLR camera rig. Credit: Dave Dickinson.
Photographing
meteors is also a pretty straightforward process: simply set up a
DSLR camera with a wide-angle lens, and take time exposure shots of
about 30 seconds to a minute in duration and see what turns up. I
like to automate the process with an intervalometer, that way, I can
just kick back and watch the sky while the camera clicks away. Be
sure to start with fresh batteries, and take several preliminary
shots to get the correct balance of exposure vs. f-stop and ISO for
current sky conditions.
Though the Lyrids are the sole major shower of Spring, there are several other meteor showers to look forward to in 2020, including the Perseids (August 12th) and the Geminids (December 14th).
One thing is certain when it comes to meteor showers: you won’t see any if you don’t try. If skies are clear, be sure to watch for the Lyrid meteors over the next few mornings.
Lead image: An April Lyrid pierces the Milky Way. Image credit and copyright: Kevin Palmer.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
The European Space Agency is fast-tracking a new mission called Ramses, which will fly to near-Earth asteroid 99942 Apophis and join the space rock in 2029 when it comes very close to our planet — closer even than the region where geosynchronous satellites sit.
Ramses is short for Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety and, as its name suggests, is the next phase in humanity’s efforts to learn more about near-Earth asteroids (NEOs) and how we might deflect them should one ever be discovered on a collision course with planet Earth.
In order to launch in time to rendezvous with Apophis in February 2029, scientists at the European Space Agency have been given permission to start planning Ramses even before the multinational space agency officially adopts the mission. The sanctioning and appropriation of funding for the Ramses mission will hopefully take place at ESA’s Ministerial Council meeting (involving representatives from each of ESA’s member states) in November of 2025. To arrive at Apophis in February 2029, launch would have to take place in April 2028, the agency says.
This is a big deal because large asteroids don’t come this close to Earth very often. It is thus scientifically precious that, on April 13, 2029, Apophis will pass within 19,794 miles (31,860 kilometers) of Earth. For comparison, geosynchronous orbit is 22,236 miles (35,786 km) above Earth’s surface. Such close fly-bys by asteroids hundreds of meters across (Apophis is about 1,230 feet, or 375 meters, across) only occur on average once every 5,000 to 10,000 years. Miss this one, and we’ve got a long time to wait for the next.
When Apophis was discovered in 2004, it was for a short time the most dangerous asteroid known, being classified as having the potential to impact with Earth possibly in 2029, 2036, or 2068. Should an asteroid of its size strike Earth, it could gouge out a crater several kilometers across and devastate a country with shock waves, flash heating and earth tremors. If it crashed down in the ocean, it could send a towering tsunami to devastate coastlines in multiple countries.
Over time, as our knowledge of Apophis’ orbit became more refined, however, the risk of impact greatly went down. Radar observations of the asteroid in March of 2021 reduced the uncertainty in Apophis’ orbit from hundreds of kilometers to just a few kilometers, finally removing any lingering worries about an impact — at least for the next 100 years. (Beyond 100 years, asteroid orbits can become too unpredictable to plot with any accuracy, but there’s currently no suggestion that an impact will occur after 100 years.) So, Earth is expected to be perfectly safe in 2029 when Apophis comes through. Still, scientists want to see how Apophis responds by coming so close to Earth and entering our planet’s gravitational field.
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“There is still so much we have yet to learn about asteroids but, until now, we have had to travel deep into the solar system to study them and perform experiments ourselves to interact with their surface,” said Patrick Michel, who is the Director of Research at CNRS at Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in Nice, France, in a statement. “Nature is bringing one to us and conducting the experiment itself. All we need to do is watch as Apophis is stretched and squeezed by strong tidal forces that may trigger landslides and other disturbances and reveal new material from beneath the surface.”
The Goldstone radar’s imagery of asteroid 99942 Apophis as it made its closest approach to Earth, in March 2021. (Image credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech/NSF/AUI/GBO)
By arriving at Apophis before the asteroid’s close encounter with Earth, and sticking with it throughout the flyby and beyond, Ramses will be in prime position to conduct before-and-after surveys to see how Apophis reacts to Earth. By looking for disturbances Earth’s gravitational tidal forces trigger on the asteroid’s surface, Ramses will be able to learn about Apophis’ internal structure, density, porosity and composition, all of which are characteristics that we would need to first understand before considering how best to deflect a similar asteroid were one ever found to be on a collision course with our world.
Besides assisting in protecting Earth, learning about Apophis will give scientists further insights into how similar asteroids formed in the early solar system, and, in the process, how planets (including Earth) formed out of the same material.
One way we already know Earth will affect Apophis is by changing its orbit. Currently, Apophis is categorized as an Aten-type asteroid, which is what we call the class of near-Earth objects that have a shorter orbit around the sun than Earth does. Apophis currently gets as far as 0.92 astronomical units (137.6 million km, or 85.5 million miles) from the sun. However, our planet will give Apophis a gravitational nudge that will enlarge its orbit to 1.1 astronomical units (164.6 million km, or 102 million miles), such that its orbital period becomes longer than Earth’s.
It will then be classed as an Apollo-type asteroid.
Ramses won’t be alone in tracking Apophis. NASA has repurposed their OSIRIS-REx mission, which returned a sample from another near-Earth asteroid, 101955 Bennu, in 2023. However, the spacecraft, renamed OSIRIS-APEX (Apophis Explorer), won’t arrive at the asteroid until April 23, 2029, ten days after the close encounter with Earth. OSIRIS-APEX will initially perform a flyby of Apophis at a distance of about 2,500 miles (4,000 km) from the object, then return in June that year to settle into orbit around Apophis for an 18-month mission.
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Furthermore, the European Space Agency still plans on launching its Hera spacecraft in October 2024 to follow-up on the DART mission to the double asteroid Didymos and Dimorphos. DART impacted the latter in a test of kinetic impactor capabilities for potentially changing a hazardous asteroid’s orbit around our planet. Hera will survey the binary asteroid system and observe the crater made by DART’s sacrifice to gain a better understanding of Dimorphos’ structure and composition post-impact, so that we can place the results in context.
The more near-Earth asteroids like Dimorphos and Apophis that we study, the greater that context becomes. Perhaps, one day, the understanding that we have gained from these missions will indeed save our planet.
