You can celebrate this year's Earth Day in the sky as the Lyrid meteor shower is expected to gently light up our planet's blue blanket early Tuesday morning.

The Lyrid meteor shower gets its name because it seems to burst from the right of Vega, a blue-white star and the brightest light source in the Lyra the Harp constellation, according to USA Today.The shower happens every year from around April 16 until April 25, but it's peak occurs before dawn on Earth Day, April 22.

The moon, which was the source of another astronomical show recently, might make Tuesday's show difficult to enjoy. The waning gibbous moon may try to outshine the shower, but there is still hope.

"The Lyrids are bright, so they can withstand some moonlight," Deborah Byrd, EarthSky.org editor, told USA Today reported.

Although most meteors will fall "during the few hours before dawn," on Tuesday according to EarthSky, it is worth checking out the shower Tuesday night and before dawn on April 23 as well "because a last quarter moon, rising in the middle of the night, intrudes on the Lyrid shower in 2014." Still, EarthSky notes that meteor showers often end up proving predictions wrong.

During the clearest nights, 20 meteors per hour have been visible during the Lyrid shower's past peaks.

"[There is] no way we'll be seeing that many this year," Byrd said. "Still, even one bright meteor streaking along in a moonlit sky can be beautiful."

If you have trouble watching the show with their eyes, you can also rely on technology. NASA will also have a live video stream of the shower on Tuesday.

Ron Hipschman, an Exploratorium scientist, said the meteor shower can be a part of the Earth Day celebration because "our planet is made of the same star stuff as meteors ... The ground we stand on is simply a larger piece of that same material," according to USA Today.

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Follow Scharon Harding on Twitter: @SH____4.

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