June's Strawberry Moon ushers in best time of year to view our celestial neighbor
Dr. Tyler Richey-Yowell, a postdoctoral fellow at Lowell Observatory in Arizona, said this is the first Moon to appear this low on the horizon in about a year.
June's full Moon is the last of astronomical spring, even though if you ask a meteorologist, summer is already in full swing.
'The Moon going across the night sky is always going to be a little lower because, in the summertime into the summer, the Sun goes higher and higher in the sky just because of our orbit. And so the Moon, being completely opposite of that, gets lower and lower,' she said.
The Strawberry Moon gets its name from the time when the berry is ready for picking, but it also corresponds with the slight hue as the Moon is lower in the sky.
'When it spends more of that time in that lower portion of the sky, you're looking through more of Earth's atmosphere, which makes these moons generally look redder and more golden. And also, they appear bigger,' Richey-Yowell said. 'The atmosphere actually bends some of the light. And so while there's not really any astronomical significance to moons in the summer, we do actually get cooler, bigger, prettier moons in the summer.'
3 People posing in front of the 'Strawberry Moon over the New York City skyline on June 21, 2024.
Photo byFor some in the northern tier and Southeast, the Strawberry Moon may be especially colorful this year.
Saharan dust arriving to Florida and crawling up the Southeast coast can also scatter light in a way that creates vibrant sunrises and sunsets, as well as a tint to the Moon.
In the North, wildfire smoke from Canada has reduced air quality but also had the same effect on the sky color.
3 The next Strawberry Moon will rise on Wednesday.
Getty Images
How to photograph the Strawberry Moon
Richey-Yowell said the best time to enjoy the Moon throughout the summer is right after sunset, when the Moon is peeking up over the horizon. During this time, the Moon can appear to have a reddish tint.
For the Strawberry Moon on Wednesday, it will be at its biggest and brightest after midnight (Pacific time) and after 3 a.m. (Eastern time).
3 The 2024 Strawberry Moon seen over the Statue of Liberty.
Photo by'If you're a night person, that would be the time to go up and see it,' she said.
With an earlier time of day to see the Moon in late spring and this summer, it's a good chance to practice photographing our only satellite.
If you plan to use a smartphone or camera, Richey-Yowell recommends finding something to stabilize your device.
'Turning down the saturation on your phone is typically what I do. The Moon's actually just really good for holding up to a telescope as well,' she said. 'They also make some really nice like phone holders that you can attach to your own personal telescope.'
The Strawberry Moon will make good practice for next month. The full Buck Moon appears at its fullest just after 4 p.m. ET on July 11, which will make for a spectacular sunset and Moon.
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In November 2025, a field team from the Purdue Research Foundation and Archaeological Legacy Institute (ALL) will head to the island of Nikumaroro to confirm whether the long-debated Taraia Object, an anomaly at the site halfway between Australia and Hawaii, really is the Lockheed Electra 10E plane once piloted by Earhart. 'With such a great amount of very strong evidence, we feel we have no choice but to move forward and hopefully return with proof,' Richard Pettigrew, ALI's executive director, said in a statement. 'I look forward to collaborating with Purdue Research Foundation in writing the final chapter in Amelia Earhart's remarkable life story.' Get the Issue Get the Issue Get the Issue Get the Issue Get the Issue Get the Issue Get the IssueGet the Issue Get the Issue This latest effort joins a long list of attempts to finally solve the Earhart mystery. According to Pettigrew, the Taraia Object hypothesis draws on a mix of documentary records, photographs, satellite imagery, physical evidence, and eyewitness accounts. Several key pieces of evidence are driving the latest push. These include: Radio bearings recorded form radio transmissions at the time by the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Coast Guard, and Pan American World Airways, which converge on Nikumaroro A 2017 analysis of human bones discovered on the island in 1940, which determined Earhart's bone lengths were more similar to the discovered bones than 99 percent of individuals Artifacts of a women's shoe, a compact case, a freckle cream jar, and a medicine vial, all dating to the 1930s A photographic anomaly—called the Bevington Object—captured three months after the plane's disappearance that resembles Electra landing gear on the Nikumaroro reef And the Taraia Object itself, located in 2020, which has been in the same place in the lagoon since 1938. 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'About nine decades ago Amelia Earhart was recruited to Purdue, and the university president later worked with her to prepare an aircraft for her historic flight around the world,' Mung Chiang, Purdue's current president, said in a statement. 'Today, as a team of experts try again to locate the plane, the Boilermaker spirit of exploration lives on.' Purdue played a pivotal role in helping Earhart attempt to circumnavigate the globe with navigator Fred Noonan. The university helped fund her Lockheed Electra 10E through the Amelia Earhart Fund for Aeronautical Research, with Purdue trustee David Ross leading the effort alongside major contributors like J.K. Lilly, Vincent Bendix, Western Electric, and the Goodrich and Goodyear companies. As a thank you for the support, Earhart planned to donate the plane to Purdue upon her return, hoping it would help further scientific research in aeronautics. Earhart's connection to Purdue has continued long after her disappearance. 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