Professor Don Pollacco, astronomy expert, University of Warwick, said:

“As comets orbit the Sun, the action of the energy evaporates material from the cometary nucleus, which we see as a comet’s tail. The gas and dust created stay in the comet orbit, even long after the comet has moved along its orbit. If the Earth passes through the comet’s orbit any material deposited by the comet could become meteors or shooting stars in the sky. These bodies are usually the size of dust particles but when they fall into the Earth’s atmosphere, they are traveling so fast that they are vapourised. Along the path that the dust particle travels, the gas molecules are superheated and give out light – this is a meteor. We don’t actually see the dust, instead its vapourised effects on the molecules. As the Earth is crossing the comet orbit, the meteors seem to be coming from the same direction – called the radiant.

“The Earth passes through a number of comet orbits every year and at these times we see an increase in meteor activity, depending on the density of dust previously ejected from the comet. The Lyrid meteor shower occurs when the Earth crosses through the orbit of a comet discovered in 1861, called Comet Thatcher. In fact, the Lyrid meteors have been seen and recorded for the last 2,700 years. They are called the Lyrid meteors because the radiant is in the constellation of Lyra. The best time to see these is after midnight on a moonless night, with as little light pollution as possible.”