- Friday, 3 April 2026
Dr Rishi Shah
The night skies of this month would provide us with optimum opportunities to immerse ourselves into the cryptic conundrums connected with planets, stars and constellations along with innumerable exciting entities existing in our universe. The mysterious planet Mercury is moving through captivating constellations Aquarius (water bearer) and Pisces (fishes) during the day. Trying to marvel at it minutely on the eastern horizon before dawn is irksome. On 03 April the fleet-footed Mercury reaches the greatest western elongation from the Sun. It would bestow avid sky-gazers with the best time to relish Mercury since it will be at its loftiest position above the horizon in the morning sky. Otherwise, one should refrain from looking for the planet low in the eastern sky just before sunrise even through optical aid, it could be harmful to eyesight. Permanent blindness could be deplorably triggered. The vagarious planet Venus can be visualised briefly in the western sky as evening twilight fades to darkness. Thereafter, it will be venturing with valour towards the horizon and be evanescent.
It is shimmering with stars that sketch the comely constellations Aries (ram) and Taurus (bull). The magnificent planet Mars would be marching in the sky during daytime through the conjuring but consoling constellation Pisces (fishes). Monitoring it in solar glare, even succinctly at sunset low-lying in the western sky, is riling. Planet Jupiter can be joyfully admired in the western sky after sundown. It would dip drastically towards the horizon after a few hours by midnight. Its Jovian moons can be applauded astonishingly with the sparkling stars of the commanding constellation Gemini (twins). Castor (Kasturi) and Pollux (Punarbasu) can be appreciated ardently above Jupiter. This Delphic star-duo represents two heavenly twin stars that are quite different in detail. Castor is a complex sextuple system with hot bluish-white stars and dim red dwarfs, while Pollux is a single cooler yellow-orange giant star that is merely 34 light-years away. Appearing as a solo star, Castor is acceptably 49 light-years away. The resplendent ringed planet Saturn stays out of sight. It sails across the sky during the day through the constellation Pisces.
Planet Uranus can be perceived pithily in the western sky after twilight during the beginning of the month in the constellation Taurus. Glimpsing it would then be grim and grievous. The far-flung blue-hued planet Neptune is skimming across constellation Pisces too close to the Sun and is lost in the Sun’s severe scintillation. The full moon betides on 02 April, while the new moon is realized on 17 April. The full moon has been popularly recognised as the pink moon because it marked the advent of moss pink, or wild ground phlox, which is greeted as the first spring flower. It bears the moniker of ‘fish moon’sh moon to describe the time when shad swam strenuously upstream to spawn. New Nepali Year, Bikram Sambat (BS) 2083, is heartily welcomed remembered,onMother’s Dayothers’ day is celebrated cheerfully on 17 April. Easter is remembered rejoicing on 05 April.
The relativelylatively Arcanee arcane Lyrid meteor shower usually unveiling a scant 20 meteors per hour at its maximum, can be gleefully watched during the night of 22 April to the morning of 23 April this year. It is produced by particles left behind by iconic comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher. The shower runs annually from 16 to 25 April.
These meteors can manifest bright dust trails that last for several seconds. The first quarter moon will set shortly after midnight, leaving tenebrous skies for presenting a shiny show of speedy shooting stars. Apt viewing could be done from murky neighbourhoods away from menacing city lights but after midnight.
Meteors seemingly spring out from the radiating point sitting strangely north-east of the border of congenial constellations Lyra (harp) and Hercules (mythical strong hero). When our planet trudges through the track left by the comet, the piercing pieces of debris (dashing at a whooping 47 kilometres per second) would wildly burn and disintegrate up in the terrestrial atmosphere, stretching softly to circa 60 kilometres above the earth’s surface, thereby dramatically displaying dazzling lights whizzing in the sky. Lyrids will peak during the wee hours (01 AM local time) of 23 April under a 34 per cent illuminated waxing moon dwelling delightfully in the constellation Gemini. The Lyrid meteor shower is one of the oldest known meteor showers, wowing for 2700 years. The first recorded observation of these fas and furiously fulgent meteors was made by Chinese experts in 687 BC and later then in 15 BC. In 1136, a report from Korea chrthe northeast’.onicled the shower ‘mentioningords mentioning many stars flew from northeast.
They are not as prolific as the famed August Perseids or the December Geminids; Lyrids can amuse and amaze onlookers with as many as over 100 meteors per hour. Sadly, however, no outburst of Lyrid activity is expected in 2026. Although Lyrids are a medium-strength shower, they have the potential to show off outbursts or an unexpectedly numerous copious number of meteors during pinnacle activity. The Lyrids counted curiously 650 meteors per hour in 1803 (witnessed from Virginia, USA), awesomely 430 meteors per hour in 1922 (Greece), gingerly 110 meteors per hour in 1945 (Japan), and simply 250 meteors per hour in 1982 (USA).
Astronomer Peter Jenniskens at the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center in California, USA, suggests a 60-year periodic cycle for Lyrid outbursts. The next Lyrid outburst will probably overwhelm us in 2042. Comet C/1861 G1 (Thatcher) is ostensibly the parent body of the Lyrid meteor shower. It is a quirky long-period comet that orbits the Sun once every 415.5 years. It sprinted to its last perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) on 03 June 1861. Amateur American astronomer A. E. Thatcher discovered this comet from New York City on 05 April 1861. It is now officially designated C/1861 G1 (Thatcher), honouring his name. One astronomical unit (AU) is defined as the mean Sun-earth distance, approximately measuring 150 million kilometres.
Comet Thatcher is travelling outwards unrelentingly away from our Sun. It will trek to its farthest point from us in around the year 2070 and then commence its return trip to rendezvous with the next perihelion around the year 2283. It is zooming currently through the alluring constellation Andromeda (chained princess) at a surprising span of a striking 108.97 AU. Vega (Avijit) is basically a beautiful bluish-white star located, putatively, 25 light-years away in the charming constellation Lyra. Historically Vega was once the Pole Star, and it will be again, questionably, in year 13727. Its mass divulges to 2.135 solar masses with its radius of 1.961 million kilometres. Its temperature is a mere 9790 degrees Celsius, and its spin velocity is barely 20.48 kilometres per second. Its age is possibly 455 million years.
In both ancient Egypt and India, the constellation Lyra was depicted as either an eagle or a vulture. Thus influenced by these cultures, Vega in the western world carried its Arabic appellation, meaning ‘the swooping eagle’. Vega is a blue-white main sequence star, only halfway through its one billion-year stellar life cycle, and still in the process of fusing hydrogen into helium. It is about 40 times more luminous than the Sun, as it is using up its hydrogen fuel about ten times quicker. Vega is also about 2.1 times more massive than our Sun. Vega is part of an attractive asterism of stars, so-called the Summer Triangle, consisting of Vega; rapidly rotating, startling star Altair (Sravan affirmed at 16.73 light-years) in commendable constellation Aquila (eagle); and stunningly huge star Deneb (arguably 3230 light-years away) in charismatic constellation Cygnus (swan), aka the Northern Cross. Vega never slides below the horizon and remains a circumpolar star throughout the year. Vega is twirling extremely swiftly at 236.2 kilometres per second at its equator.
This value translates into one turn once every 12.5 hours, which outlines 87.6 per cent of the velocity it would take for the star to fly apart as the result of excessive centrifugal forces. Consequently, its equatorial bulge is pronounced. Interestingly, Vega’s horribly high lambency (40 times that of the Sun) can be explained by the effects of elevated differential whirl on its magnetic field. The beguilingly candy-coloured Ring Nebula (M57, NGC 6720) is beaming boisterously in Lyra. This perplexing planetary nebula perennially in vogue among amateur astronomers is nominally 2300 light-years away.
(Dr. Shah is an academician at NAST and patron of NASO.)
