Skywatchers hoping to catch the cosmic light show known as the Lyrid meteor shower had their best chance as the annual event peaked the night of April 21, but don't give up if you just missed it, astronomers say.
Despite passing its peak, the shower will still provide a chance for viewing opportunities as it tapers off for the rest of the week, they say.
The Lyrid shower comes around each year as the Earth travels through a debris trail left in the wake of Comet Thatcher, circling the sun in a orbit that takes 415 years for one round trip.
"Flakes of comet dust, most no bigger than grains of sand, strike Earth's atmosphere traveling 49 km/s (110,000 mph) and disintegrate as streaks of light," SpaceWeather.com said.
Although astronomers are familiar with the comet, no photographs of it exist, since at the 1861 date of its last visit to the region of the inner solar system, photography had not reached the point of being able to capture images of the night sky.
The comet won't return to our cosmic neighborhood until 2276.
The shower, which usually occurs between the dates of April 16 and April 25, features meteors appearing to originate from the region of the star Vega located in the constellation Lyra, hence the Lyrid name. The constellation is also known as the Harp.
The intensity of the shower can vary from year to year, and a bright moon -- what astronomers call a "waning gibbous moon," a more than half-full moon -- was making this year's event less than impressive, experts said.
Nevertheless, "the Lyrids are bright, so they can withstand some moonlight," Deborah Byrd of the science and astronomy website EarthSky.org said.
Of the meteor showers visible from Earth on a repeating basis, the Lyrid shower is one of the oldest known. A Chinese chronicle written in 687 B.C., known as the Chronicle of Zuo after its author Qiuming Zuo, reported "at midnight, stars fell down like rain."
The Lyrid shower, as dramatic as it might be, can't hold a candle to better-known and brighter spectacles such as the Perseid shower in August or the Geminid shower in December, experts say.
