The last Full Moon of spring shines in the sky this week
Eyes to the sky to see 2025's Full Strawberry Moon!
Do you have reasonably clear skies this week? If so, pause for a few minutes during the next few nights, turn your gaze to the sky, and take in the beauty of the final Full Moon of Spring 2025.
This Full Moon is timed to occur at 7:44 UTC on June 11, or 3:44 a.m. EDT.
However, due to the Moon's distance and its size in the sky, at a glance it will appear full from Monday evening through until just after midnight Thursday morning. Viewing the Moon through a telescope or a good pair of binoculars, though, will reveal the very thin sliver of the Moon's disk in shadow on Monday and Wednesday nights.
This is the final Full Moon of spring for this year, and the first 'normal' sized Full Moon after a string of three micromoons in March, April, and May.
If you'd like to see the Moon look exceptionally big, head out around sunset and look for it on the eastern horizon. Or, if you're up before the Sun rises, look for it as it is setting in the west. Either time, the Moon will look huge, due to the Moon Illusion.
READ MORE:
The name of this Full Moon really doesn't have anything to do with colour. Still, we could see it take on a strawberry hue, due to wildfire smoke drifting across the country.
Every Full Moon we see during the year has its own popular name. These names were gathered together, roughly a century ago, and published in the Farmer's Alamanac. They originated from Colonial and European folklore, but mostly from the indigenous peoples of what is now known as the northeastern United States and the Great Lakes region.
This graphic collects all the relevant data for the 12 Full Moons of 2025. (Scott Sutherland/NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio/Fred Espenak)
The popular name of the June Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon, as this was traditionally the time of year to pick ripened strawberries.
Although the Colonial and European names used by the almanacs referred specifically to the Full Moon, the other names they added to the list actually did not. Or, at least that was not their only use.
DON'T MISS:
Like other advanced cultures around the world, the indigenous peoples of North America used a sophisticated lunar calendar to track time. For example, the Anishinaabe visualized their calendar using the pattern of plates on the shell of a turtle. The 28 small plates around the shell's edge corresponded to the days of each lunar cycle, and the 13 large plates on the turtle's back were the 13 lunar months of the year.
Each of the 13 moons was given a name, similar to the months of the Gregorian calendar. However, whereas the names of the months came from gods, rulers, and their numerical order in the calendar, the names of the moons were taken from the aspect of nature that affected the peoples' lives at that time of year.
The Strawberry Moon corresponds closely with the month of June in the Gregorian calendar. As shown below, though, it does not match up perfectly with the calendar month.
The phases of the Moon during the 2025 Strawberry Moon lunation, from May 27 to June 25. (Scott Sutherland/NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio)
(Thumbnail image courtesy Eva Hurlbut, of St. Thomas, ON, who captured this reddish-hued Full Strawberry Moon on June 3, 2023.)
Click here to view the video
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Digital Trends
an hour ago
- Digital Trends
NASA astronaut's first ISS time-lapse is a real stunner
NASA astronaut Jonny Kim has shared his first-ever time-lapse from aboard the International Space Station (ISS) — and it's a real stunner. The dramatic 68-second clip shows a changing view of Earth as the space-based facility orbits our planet at an altitude of about 250 miles. Recommended Videos 'My first time-lapse,' Kim wrote in a social media post that included the video (below). Kim said he managed to nail it thanks to some time-lapse tips shared by fellow astronaut Nichole Ayers. 'After seeing the result, I told her this felt like fishing,' Kim wrote. 'Prepping the camera, the angle, the settings, the mount, then setting your timer and coming back to hope you got a catch. And after catching my first fish, I think I'm hooked.' My first time-lapse. Thanks to some instruction and tips from @Astro_Ayers, I caught my first aurora. After seeing the result, I told her this felt like fishing. Prepping the camera, the angle, the settings, the mount, then setting your timer and coming back to hope you got a… — Jonny Kim (@JonnyKimUSA) June 6, 2025 The video shows the space station flying into the night, with city lights in Asia and Australia visible far below, and bright stars shining in the far distance. A short while later, a gorgeous aurora appears over the horizon before filling much of the frame. Toward the end of the clip, one of the station's solar arrays also come into view. Auroras are natural light displays in Earth's sky, caused by charged particles from the sun colliding with the Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere. While also viewable from parts of Earth, astronauts on the ISS can also enjoy a unique view of this natural wonder. Indeed, for most astronauts, witnessing auroras is one of the highlights of their time in orbit. Earlier this year, another NASA astronaut, Don Pettit, shared a dramatic view of an aurora, captured as the ISS flew directly over it. Kim arrived at the space station with two Russian cosmonauts after launching aboard a Soyuz spacecraft in April this year. With another four months of his mission left to run, hopefully the American will have time to create more clips similar to his first outstanding effort.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
NASA raises the odds that an asteroid could hit the moon in 2032
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Asteroid 2024 YR4, once considered the highest impact risk to Earth ever recorded, is back in the spotlight — this time due to a slight increase in the chance that it could impact the moon in 2032. Although now too distant to observe from Earth, the asteroid briefly came into view in May for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Using data from the telescope's Near-Infrared Camera, a team led by Andy Rivkin of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory refined predictions of where 2024 YR4 will be on Dec. 22, 2032 by nearly 20%. That revised trajectory nudged the odds of a lunar impact from 3.8% to 4.3%, according to a NASA update. "As data comes in, it is normal for the impact probability to evolve," the statement read. Even if a collision occurs, "it would not alter the moon's orbit." Astronomer Pawan Kumar, a former researcher at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics in Bengaluru, agrees the moon is safe, noting a collision with the moon "won't be a cause for concern" because any moon debris blasted into space from the impact "blow up in Earth's atmosphere if any of it makes it to near-Earth space." First detected on Dec. 27 last year, 2024 YR4 is estimated to be about 174 to 220 feet long (53 to 67 meters), or about the size of a 10-story building. The asteroid quickly grabbed headlines for having more than a 1% chance of striking Earth, the highest recorded for any large asteroid. Follow-up observations in January and February saw the impact risk climb from 1.2% to a peak of 3.1%. The asteroid's projected trajectory at the time suggested it could cause blast damage across a wide potential impact zone, spanning the eastern Pacific, northern South America, Africa and southern Asia. If it enters Earth's atmosphere over the ocean, NASA estimated it would be unlikely to trigger significant tsunamis, but an airburst over a populated city could shatter windows and cause minor structural damage. However, the impact risk dropped sharply as additional orbital data came in. By Feb. 19, the probability had fallen to 1.5%, and then to 0.3% the next day. On Feb. 24, NASA announced an official "all clear" on social media, reporting the impact probability had dropped to just 0.004% and that the asteroid is "expected to safely pass by Earth in 2032." Further analysis has since allowed scientists to rule out any risk to Earth, not only in 2032 but from all future close approaches as well. Data from telescopes in Chile and Hawaii recently suggested the space rock originated in the central main belt between Mars and Jupiter and gradually shifted into a near-Earth orbit. Since mid-April, the asteroid has been too far away and too faint to be seen from Earth. It will swing back into view in 2028, giving scientists another chance to observe the asteroid and further refine its orbit using both JWST and ground-based telescopes. In particular, scientists will aim to gather more data on its shape and composition, which are key factors in understanding both its behavior and potential impact effects. RELATED STORIES — Odds of an asteroid impact in 2032 just went up. Here's why experts say you shouldn't worry — Asteroid apocalypse: How big must a space rock be to end human civilization? — Astronomers discover 196-foot asteroid with 1-in-83 chance of hitting Earth in 2032 While 2024 YR4 no longer poses any danger, it provided scientists with a rare, real-world opportunity to rehearse the full scope of planetary defense strategy, ranging from initial detection and risk analysis to public messaging. It was "an actual end-to-end exercise" for how we might respond to a potentially hazardous asteroid in the future, said Kumar. "2024 YR4 is a tailor-made asteroid for planetary defense efforts," he said. "It has everything it takes to get our attention."
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Dementia Risk Declining With Each Generation, Says Promising New Study
Dementia cases are on the rise around the world. In 2021, 57 million people were living with one of the neurodegenerative diseases under the dementia umbrella, and by 2050, that number is expected to reach 153 million. But a new study suggests the tides may be turning, with younger generations facing lower risks for the disease as they age. The research team, led by economist Xiaoxue Dou from the University of Queensland in Australia, ran a cross-sectional observational study using health survey data from the US, Europe and England: one that's representative of cross-sections of the populations involved at a single point in time, and based on observational data. The researchers only used variables that were available across all the survey data to estimate participants' dementia status, to compensate for any missing observations. "Birth cohorts born more recently were less likely to develop dementia in all three regions, albeit at different rates," the authors state in a journal article. "This decreasing trend was more pronounced among women than men." They particularly focused on people aged 71 years or older, with the data sorted into age groups spanning four years. Compared with the older groups, younger cohorts had lower age-specific dementia prevalence rates: 21.2 percent for those in the US study; 38.9 percent in the European study; and 28.3 percent in England. "For example, in the US, among people aged 81 to 85, 25.1 percent of those born between 1890-1913 had dementia, compared to 15.5 percent of those born between 1939-1943," economist and co-author Sabrina Lenzen of the University of Queensland told Nicola Davis at The Guardian. The team cautions their data may not accurately reflect what is happening in minority groups. But the findings suggest that, while aging populations globally will probably mean greater numbers of people living with dementia, the percentage of people affected may actually be decreasing, at least among the groups studied. This generational decrease in dementia risk, the study's authors write, "has important implications for health care planning, long-term care policies, and workforce requirements in aging populations." This research was published in JAMA Network Open. Several Psychiatric Disorders Share The Same Root Cause, Study Finds New Smart Dental Floss Can Detect Your Stress From Saliva Gluten Intolerance vs Celiac Disease: Experts Reveal The Key Differences
