The artist’s concept of a “strawberry” supermoon.
The next full moon is the Strawberry Supermoon; mead, honey or pink moon; the flower, the hot, the hoe or the planting moon; Wat Purnima; Poson Poya; and LRO the Moon.
Many cultures that go far back in history have different names for the twelve full moons experienced each year. Often the names of full moons sound literally colorful, like the name “Strawberry Supermoon”, where it’s easy to imagine something like the artist’s concept above.
However, names are not usually based on color, but are often names for an activity that takes place at this time of year. For example, the name “Strawberry Moon” comes from the Algonquin Indian tribes that live in today’s northeastern United States and the relatively short strawberry harvest season in the region.
This strawberry moon is a special pleasure because it is not an ordinary full moon, but a supermoon. This happens when the Moon’s orbit is closest to Earth, which gives us a larger, brighter full moon.
The next full moon will be on the morning of Tuesday, June 14, 2022, and will appear against the Earth’s longitude Sun at 7:52 a.m. EDT. This will be late Monday night for the international time zone of the international date in the west, Tuesday for many of the time zones on Earth and Wednesday morning from the standard time zone of Chatham in the east to the international date line. The moon will appear full for about three days in the center of this time, from Sunday night to Wednesday morning.
The moon is seen rising behind NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard a mobile launch rocket as it heads for Launch Complex 39B for the first time, Thursday, March 17, 2022, at the Space Center of NASA Kennedy in Florida. Credit: NASA / Aubrey Geminiani
One moon, many names
In the 1930s, the Maine Farmers’ Almanac began publishing Indian names for full moons. According to this almanac, the Algonquin tribes of the present-day northeastern United States call it the strawberry moon. The name comes from the relatively short strawberry harvest season in the region.
An old European name for this full moon is the Honeymoon or Honeymoon. Mead is a drink created by fermenting honey mixed with water and sometimes with fruits, spices, cereals or hops. In some countries, mead is also called honey wine (although in others honey wine is made differently). Some writings suggest that the time around the end of June was when the honey was ready for harvest, making it the “sweetest” moon. The word “honeymoon” dates back to at least the 1500s in Europe. The tradition of calling the first month of marriage a “honeymoon” may be linked to this full moon because of the custom of marrying in June or because the “honeymoon” is the “sweetest” moon of the year. There seems to be no evidence to support the 19th-century theory that the word came into English from the custom of giving newlyweds mead for their first month of marriage.
The term “supermoon” was coined by astrologer Richard Nole in 1979 and refers to a new moon or full moon, which occurs when the moon is within 90% of the perigee, its closest approach to Earth.
What is a Supermoon?
Another European name for this full moon is the Pink Moon. Some sources say that the name “Moon Moon” comes from the roses that bloom at this time of year. Others point out that the name comes from the color of the full moon. The Moon’s orbit around the Earth is almost in the same plane as the Earth’s orbit around the Sun (only about 5 degrees). At the summer solstice, the sun appears highest in the sky for the year. The full moons are against the Sun, so the full moon near the summer solstice will be low in the sky. Especially for the higher latitudes of Europe, when the full moon is low, it glows through more atmosphere, making it more likely to be reddish (for the same reasons that sunrises and sunsets are red). For the Washington, D.C. region, at 1:56 a.m. EDT on the morning of June 15, 2022, its highest full moon will reach just 23.3 degrees above the southern horizon, the lowest full moon of the year.
Other seasonal names for this full moon that I found mentioned in various sources (sometimes with conflicting information about whether they are of European or Indian descent) are the color moon, the hot moon, the hoe moon, and the planting moon.
For Hindus, this is Wat Purnima. During the three days of this full moon, married women will show their love for their husbands by tying a ceremonial thread around a banana tree. The holiday is based on the legend of Savitri and Satyavan.
For Buddhists, this is Poson Poya. Poson in Sri Lanka celebrates the introduction of Buddhism in 236 BC.
Another tribe also named this full moon. This tribe is now scattered, but lives mainly in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The language of this tribe is mostly English, but with a liberal set of acronyms, mysterious scientific and engineering terms and Hawaiian phrases (happily introduced by the former deputy project manager). Composed of people of all backgrounds, many of whom have joined other tribes, this tribe has been dedicated to the study of the moon. This tribe called the June full moon LRO Moon, in honor of the spacecraft they launched into the moon on June 18, 2009. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is still orbiting the moon, providing information about our nearest celestial neighbor, some of which they help us understand our own planet.
The strawberry supermoon
This will be a supermoon. The term “supermoon” was introduced by astrologer Richard Nole in 1979 and refers to a new moon or full moon, which occurs when the moon is within 90% of the perigee, its closest approach to Earth. Since we cannot see a new moon (except when it passes in front of the Sun), what has attracted public attention in recent decades are full supermoons, as these are the largest and brightest full moons of the year. Because perigee varies with each orbit, different publications use different thresholds to decide which full moons qualify as supermoons, but everyone agrees that in 2022, full moons in June and July are eligible.
The moon and calendars
In many traditional lunar and lunisolar calendars, full moons fall near the middle of the lunar months. This full moon is in the middle of the fifth month of the Chinese calendar, Sivan in the Jewish calendar and Zu al-Qada in the Islamic calendar (one of the four holy months during which war is forbidden).
As usual, wearing appropriate festive heavenly attire is encouraged in honor of the full moon.
Here is a summary of celestial events between now and the full moon after the following (with times and angles based on the location of NASA headquarters in Washington, DC):
With the end of spring and the beginning of summer, the daylight periods of sunlight reach their longest duration of the solstice and begin to shorten again. Sunny days (as measured, for example, from sunny noon to sunny sundial lunch) are longer than 24 hours near the solstice, so the earliest sunrises of the year occur before the summer solstice and the newest sunsets of the year occur after the solstice.
This year, Monday and Tuesday, June 13 and 14, 2022, are associated with the earliest sunrises of the year, with a sunrise at 5:42:11 a.m. EDT and a morning twilight beginning at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 14, 2022 June (full moon day), morning twilight will begin at 4:30 a.m., sunrise will be one of the earliest sunrises at 5:42 p.m., sunny lunch will be at 1:08:24 p.m. The sun will reach its maximum height of 74.41 degrees, the sunset will be at 20:35 and the evening twilight will end at 21:47
The summer solstice will be on Tuesday morning, June 21, at 5:13 a.m. On the day of the solstice, the morning twilight will begin at 4:31 a.m., the sunrise will be at 5:43 a.m., the sunny lunch will be at 1:00 p.m. : 21:49, when the Sun reaches its highest for the year 74.56 degrees, the sunset will be at 20:37 (this will be the longest period from sunrise to sunset, 14 hours, 53 minutes, 42.1 seconds) and the evening twilight will end at 9:49 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, June 27 and 28, are tied to the newest sunsets of the year, with sunset at 8:37:29 p.m. Until Wednesday, July 13 (full moon day) after the next one), the morning twilight will start at 4:43 am, the sunrise will be at 5:54 am, the solar lunch will be at 1:13:53 pm, when the Sun will reach its maximum height of 72.87 degrees , the sunset will be at 20:34 and the evening twilight will end at 21:44
Accents of the evening sky
On the evening of Tuesday, June 14, 2022 (full moon day), when evening twilight ends at 9:47 p.m. EDT, the rising full moon will appear 3 degrees above the southeastern horizon. The brightest star that appears closest to the head will be Arcturus 70 degrees above the southern horizon. Arcturus, the 4th brightest star in our night sky, is about 37 light-years from Earth and almost the same mass as our Sun, but older. Arcturus has depleted the hydrogen in its core and become a red giant, swollen to about 25 times its previous size and shining about 170 times brighter than the Sun. Our Sun is about halfway through this life cycle and is expected to become a red giant in about 5 billion years.
As the lunar cycle progresses, the background of the stars will seem to shift west every night (although the Earth actually moves around the Sun in the east). The rising moon will pass near the bright stars Polux on June 30, Regulus on July 2 and 3, Spica on July 7 and Antares on July 10, 2022.
By Wednesday evening, July 13, 2022, when evening twilight ends (at 9:44 p.m. EDT), the full moon will appear 5 degrees above the southeastern horizon. Two bright stars will be connected to the nearest overhead, with Vega 60 degrees above the east-northeast horizon and Arcturus 59 degrees above the west-southwest horizon. Vega, …
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