June 2025 full moon: It's been years since you've seen one that looks like this

USA Today

16 hours ago

June 2025 full moon: It's been years since you've seen one that looks like this June's full moon, known as the strawberry moon, will rise on the evening of Tuesday, June 10. It will appear extraordinarily low in the sky.
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Astronomy events to look out for the month of June
Professor Chris Palma shares the top astronomy events to watch this June, from the Strawberry Moon to the summer solstice.
June 2025's full moon is coming to a sky near you in the early morning hours of June 11. And while all June full moons ride low in the sky, spring's final full moon this year will be the lowest full moon in almost 20 years.
The strawberry moon will rise on the evening of Tuesday, June 10, and will shine into Wednesday morning, a "sight that can be seen around the world," said Brian Lada, an AccuWeather meteorologist.
June's full moon is called the strawberry moon because it signaled to some Native American tribes that it was the time of year to gather ripening wild strawberries, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac.
Notably, this year's strawberry moon could actually have a reddish glow, due to how low it will sit in the sky and the haze from wildfires.
When is the full strawberry moon?
June's full moon will reach peak illumination on June 11, 2025, at 3:44 a.m. ET, the Almanac said. But it will look plenty full as it rises the evening before, June 10.
Why could it be colorful?
The strawberry moon is the most colorful of the year because it takes a low, shallow path across the sky, said Bob Bonadurer, director of the Milwaukee Public Museum's planetarium.
The June full moon's arc across the sky means moonlight must travel through more of the Earth's atmosphere, which can give it a colorful tint.
"So there's a chance it will actually look a little bit reddish or pink, and, and so that may also be part of the origin of the name," Chris Palma, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State University, told AccuWeather.
Smoke in the atmosphere from Canadian wildfires could also act to create a colorful moon.
Why so low in the sky this year? Blame the 'major lunar standstill'
According to EarthSky, the moon will the lowest in the sky that it's been since 2006. "That's because we're in the midst of a major lunar standstill," which has to do with the moon's orbit around the Earth.
"It's all about the inclination of the moon's orbit, which undergoes an 18.6-year cycle," noted EarthSky's John Jardine Goss. "The cycle happens because the moon's orbit is being slowly dragged around – mostly due to the pull of the sun – every 18.6 years."
This year's major lunar standstill culminated in January 2025. And we're still close enough to it that the standstill is affecting the path of this June full moon, EarthSky said.