3 days ago
Strawberry Moon to rise over Britain next week, but it will be in an odd place
This month will see the full Strawberry Moon burst into fruit in the UK's skies, but in a rather unusual place.
The first full Moon of summer will be unusually low in the sky due to the recent 'lunar standstill', which means the Moon appears low in the sky when it is due south and due to the proximity to this month's Summer Solstice.
The Strawberry Moon will be quickly followed by the Summer Solstice - the longest day of the year - which will peak on Saturday 21 June 2025 at 3:41 am
The Moon will appear lower in the sky due to last December's 'major lunar standstill', an event that occurs every 18.6 years and means the moon reaches its most extreme positions on the horizon.
This means the Moon's path across the sky is longer: 'major lunar standstills' occur when the tilt of the moon and the tilt of the Earth coincide.
Moons also always appear lower in the sky around the summer solstice. Nasa said: 'On the summer solstice the Sun appears highest in the sky for the year. Full Moons are opposite the Sun, so a full Moon near the summer solstice will be low in the sky.'
In Scotland, people are gathering this month at the standing stones in Callanish to witness the 'lunar standstill' from among the stones erected on the Isle of Lewis from 3,000BC.
Pete Lawrence of BBC Sky at Night Magazine says, 'This evening and into the morning of 11 June, the full Moon is very low when due south.
'This is near a 'major lunar standstill', the lowest Moon in an 18.6-year lunar cycle.
The Moon will appear bigger because it is near the horizon, which makes people perceive it as larger, relatively speaking.
Lawrence says that June 11 is 'a perfect chance to experience the Moon illusion, which makes the low full Moon appear much larger than it really is.'
The Moon illusion occurs when the Moon is near the horizon, and makes our satellite appear much bigger.
The phenomenon has been known since ancient times but is still not fully understood.
The full Moon will peak on the morning of 11 June at 8.44am, but the Moon will appear full for the nights either side of that as well.
Full moons roughly line up to the months of the year (the word 'month' comes from the word 'moon').
Because extra days were added to some calendar months to make the year add up to 365 days, months do not line up perfectly with full Moons.
The names we use for full Moons today (such as 'cold Moon', 'wolf Moon' and 'harvest Moon') come to us indirectly from Native American traditions
Nasa's Gordon Johnston wrote: 'In the 1930s the Maine Farmer's Almanac began publishing 'Indian' names for the full moons, tying these names to the European months.
Nasa said that June's full Moon is 'the Strawberry Moon, a name that comes from the relatively short season for harvesting strawberries in the north-eastern United States.'
Around the world, June's full Moon is also known as the Flower Moon, Hot Moon and Planting Moon.
