Despite its name, June’s full moon will not look like a strawberry. But the bright orb could still turn heads Friday night with an appearance that is bigger and more colorful than the average moon. Nicknamed the strawberry moon, June's full moon will peak one day after the summer solstice.
Here, the full strawberry moon looms over New York City in June 2023. The full moon — which will reach the crest of its fullness at 9:08 p.m.
ET Friday — comes one day after the summer solstice , the day of the year when the sun appears the highest in the sky for the Northern Hemisphere. Since a full moon is opposite the sun, this strawberry moon will shine lower in the sky than usual, according to NASA. Because of this “lower than average path across the sky,” the full moon could have an “orange- or amber-colored appearance, for the same reason sunsets appear orange or reddish,” said Preston Dyches, a science communicator with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, in an email.
Dyches said the effect is the result of the moon’s reflected light having to travel a longer distance throughout Earth’s atmosphere, scattering away most blue wavelengths (which are shorter than red wavelengths). Native American tribes across North America gave the strawberry moon its name to mark the in-season ripeness of strawberries, according to The Old Farmer’s Almanac . A full "Strawberry Moon" rises June 14, 2022, behind the Boston Light in Winthrop, Mass.
The moon’s.