Did you know Yosemite's collections house 5.5 MILLION objects, from black bear skulls to oil paintings? We'll be broadcasting live tomorrow from the museum collections with Chief Curator Ephriam Dickson! Join us at 3 pm PDT: https://t.co/csG7V8jXLl#Yosemite#BehindTheScenespic.twitter.com/fPJzh1L81k
Meet the toque macaques and the gray langurs of Sri Lanka. Watch the premiere of Born Wild: The Next Generation tomorrow at 8/7c on National Geographic. #NatGeoBornWild#EarthDaypic.twitter.com/28otEJHJ2r
You may not be able to see the moon in the sky tonight, but if you look up for long enough at a dark, clear sky, you may catch some “shooting stars.”
The annual Lyrid meteor shower peaks overnight tonight (April 21) and into the early hours of Wednesday (April 22), less than a day before the new moon. Without any glaring moonlight to obstruct the view, skywatchers will have an excellent view of the Lyrids this year — weather permitting.
From a dark, clear sky, observers in the Northern Hemisphere can expect to see as many as 10 to 20 meteors per hour during the shower’s peak. Because the shower is active from mid- to late April, some Lyrid meteors may still appear before and after the peak, but tonight will be your best chance to see them.
Photographer Islam Hassan captured this photo of a Lyrid meteor over Egypt on April 25, 2015. (Image credit: Islam Hassan/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0)
The shower’s peak will last for a few hours, but maximum activity is expected to occur around 2 a.m. EDT (0600 GMT) on Wednesday, according to the Observer’s Handbook of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. That’s about 20 hours before the moon reaches its new phase at 10:26 a.m. EDT (0226 GMT). That tiny sliver of a nearly-new moon still won’t be visible in the night sky, because the moon will be below the horizon. In New York City, for example, the moon sets at 6:23 p.m. local time tonight and rises again at 5:50 a.m. tomorrow.
To spot the Lyrids, find a dark sky away from light pollution and look up — ideally while lying on your back, so you don’t strain your neck. Lyrid meteors will appear to originate from a point in the sky on the border between the constellations Hercules and Lyra (home of the bright star Vega). This apparent point of origin, known as the meteor shower’s radiant, will be in the northeast after sunset and almost directly overhead in the hours before dawn.
The radiant, or point of origin, of the Lyrid meteor shower is in the constellation Hercules, near the border with the Lyra constellation. (Image credit: SkySafari App)
Once you’ve located the radiant, don’t just stare at that spot all night. Longer streaks tend to appear farther from the shower’s radiant, so you might miss the best meteors if your eyes are glued on that singular spot all night (also, focusing on a single point in the dark for so long might strain your eyes).
So, since lying down on the ground is both more comfortable and will give you the best view of the entire sky, we suggest you kick back and relax to make the most of this brilliant, cosmic event.Click here for more Space.com videos…
Editor’s note: If you snap a great photo Lyrid meteor shower that you’d like to share for a possible story or image gallery, send photos, comments and your name and observing location to spacephotos@space.com.
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Sign the Petition Pieter Kat started this petition to Conservative Party Leader Boris Johnson and 6 others
The body parts of lions killed in gruesome hunts are being bought and imported into our country as ‘hunting trophies’. To hunt these beautiful animals for fun is inhumane and wrong – but it’s also contributing to the rapid decline of lion numbers. That’s why I’m calling on lion trophy hunting imports to be banned immediately. I lived and worked for two decades in several African countries to help the conservation of lions there and I’m now the director of Lion Aid. It pains me that their numbers continue to drop. The number of lions in Africa has decreased from over 200,000 to less than 15,000 within the past 50 years. Most of the ‘trophies’ are male lions. This has a disastrous knock on effect, pride structures are disrupted, reproduction almost grinds to a halt as cub survival is severely affected, and mortality among females increases as they attempt to protect their cubs during encounters with more and more displaced males. We must immediately stop our involvement in this cruel trade of lions killed for fun, like others around the world have. Australia, France and the Netherlands have already banned lion trophy imports. Why have we not yet joined them in doing so? In 2010 and 2015 promises were made by British MPs about introducing a ban, but years later nothing has happened. Every single day we delay makes it more and more likely that we push lions towards extinction. Please sign my petition calling on the UK to immediately ban imports of Lion trophies.
Help keep the Earth healthy by ditching single-use plastic items. You can make a paper straw to use instead of a plastic one, which is one of the top items found at beach cleanups and can hurt ocean animals that mistake them for food.
Print out the Nat Geo Kids straw pattern and cut it out, or use a piece of printer paper cut into 1.5-inch-wide strips.
STEP TWO
Add a long line of glue on the side without the pattern.
STEP THREE
Place a chopstick at an angle on the back of the paper. Then roll the paper around the chopstick until it’s completely covered. (Be careful to roll the paper on top of itself so you don’t get glue on the chopstick!)
STEP FOUR
Wait 10 minutes for the glue to dry, then wiggle the chopstick out from inside the paper tube.
STEP FIVE
Cut both ends of the tube to make them even.
STEP SIX
Grab a parent and put the wax in a glass jar. Melt the wax by either putting the jar on a candle warmer or in a pot of warm water on the stove.Kids vs. Plastic10 tips to reduce your plastic useMake pom-pom puffsPlastic Pollution
STEP SEVEN
Dip the paper tube into the melted wax one half at a time (this part might get a little messy!) Then gently wipe the tube with a paper towel to get off any extra wax. Let the straws dry about 10 minutes before using. PLANET PROTECTOR TIPThese paper straws will last only about a day. Ask your parents to purchase reusable straws made of bamboo, metal, glass, or silicone that you can use forever!
Following in the spirit of Britain's Queen Boudica, Queen of the Iceni. A boudica.us site. I am an opinionator, do your own research, verification. Reposts, reblogs do not neccessarily reflect our views.
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