Skywatchers have two meteor events to track this week. The Lyrid meteor shower peaks overnight April 21–22, producing roughly 10–20 meteors per hour under dark-sky conditions as Earth crosses debris from Comet C/1861 G1 (Thatcher). Best viewing is after about 10–11 p.m. local time through the predawn hours, with rates highest between roughly 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. Look toward the Lyra constellation (near Vega) and get away from light pollution; no optics are necessary. A second shower, the Eta Aquariids, begins around April 19 and runs through May 28, with a predicted peak around May 5–6. Fed by Halley’s Comet, the Eta Aquariids can produce many fast meteors—up to 50 per hour in ideal tropical skies—but northern observers will see fewer, and a bright moon near its peak could reduce visible counts. Observing tips across both events include allowing eyes to adapt to darkness, dressing for early-morning temperatures, and using sky‑map apps to locate radiants.

The annual Lyrid meteor shower is active now and is expected to peak Tuesday night into Wednesday morning (April 21–22, 2026), offering skywatchers in the Northern Hemisphere their best chance to see 10–20 shooting stars per hour under dark skies. The Lyrids are debris from Comet Thatcher (C/1861 G1), a long‑period comet that returns roughly every 415 years; Earth crosses its dust trail each April. This year’s viewing is helped by a thin crescent moon that sets before the best hours, leaving darker skies for observers. Meteors appear to radiate from the Lyra constellation (near the bright star Vega), but longer, brighter streaks are often seen away from the radiant. Experts recommend going out after midnight, finding a wide, unobstructed, low‑light location, allowing eyes 20–30 minutes to adapt, and avoiding direct view of the radiant. The Eta Aquariids, a stronger shower fed by Halley’s Comet, also begins this period and will peak in early May, though lunar phase may affect its visibility.

A new wave-physics model developed by researchers at MIT predicts that gentle breezes on Saturn’s moon Titan could generate waves up to about 3 metres (10 feet) high on its hydrocarbon lakes. The model, dubbed PlanetWaves, extends traditional wind-wave theory by incorporating atmospheric pressure and the liquids’ properties—density, viscosity and surface tension—then was validated against 20 years of Lake Superior buoy data. Low gravity (about 14% of Earth’s) and the light nature of methane-ethane mixtures mean modest winds can build large, slow-moving swells over long fetches. The result helps reconcile Cassini’s largely smooth radar returns with geomorphic evidence for shoreline erosion and transient radar-bright patches observed in some flybys. Lead authors including Una Schneck and collaborators Andrew Ashton and Taylor Perron note the findings matter for interpreting Titan’s coastal features and for engineering any future lake-going or floatation probes; they also have implications for modeling waves on other worlds and some exoplanet scenarios.

Using 18 years of very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) radio observations, an international team has for the first time derived a real-time measurement of the kinetic power and speed of jets from the stellar-mass black hole Cygnus X-1. The system — a ~21-solar-mass black hole orbiting a ~40-solar-mass O-type star, HDE 226868 — shows jets bent repeatedly by the companion’s fierce stellar wind. By modelling the wind’s ram pressure and matching the observed jet deflection, researchers infer an instantaneous kinetic power of roughly 2×10^37 ergs per second (often translated as the equivalent output of ~10,000 Suns) and a jet speed near half the speed of light. The study finds the jets carry about 10% of the accretion energy. Results are reported in Nature Astronomy and rely on data from the European VLBI Network and collaborators including the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research.

A fast stream of solar wind driven by a large coronal hole is expected to reach Earth on April 17–18, 2026, prompting NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center to issue a G2 (moderate) geomagnetic storm watch and the U.K. Met Office to warn of possible G3 (strong) bursts. Measured solar wind speeds are forecast at up to about 430 miles per second (700 km/s). If conditions intensify, auroras could be pushed into mid-latitudes and be visible across much of the northern United States — potentially as far south as Illinois and Oregon — during peak windows the evening of April 17 into the early hours of April 18. Forecast models note uncertainty because the southward component of the interplanetary magnetic field (Bz) will control how far south the aurora oval shifts. Operators have also been warned that G2 conditions can cause increased drag on low-Earth orbit satellites and voltage irregularities in high-latitude power systems; aviation and communications services may see intermittent impacts.

A multi-institution research team publishing in Science in April 2026 presents evidence that the ancestral Colorado River pooled in the Bidahochi Basin of northeastern Arizona before spilling westward and carving the Grand Canyon. Using detrital zircon geochronology and ash-bed dating, researchers matched tiny zircon grains in Bidahochi sediments to upstream Colorado River sources, showing river-borne material present about 6.6 million years ago. The authors infer a wide, shallow Bidahochi (Hopi) lake that filled and began spilling across the Colorado Plateau around 5.6 million years ago, routing incision through the Kaibab Arch and downstream basin spillovers that ultimately delivered the river to the Gulf of California by about 4.8 million years ago. Paleontological hints — fossils of fish with features seen in modern fast‑water species — and increased downstream sedimentation support a transition to a riverine system. The interpretation remains contested: other geologists argue alternative pathways and earlier notching of the Kaibab Arch by tributaries, so the lake‑spillover model is not universally accepted.