
June’s full moon, affectionately known as the “Strawberry Moon”, gets its name from the Algonquian people. They observed that its annual appearance coincided with the brief season for harvesting strawberries.
Tonight, after the sun sets, the moon will likely appear larger than usual at moonrise due to the moon illusion, a fascinating trick of our brains that makes it seem bigger when it’s near the horizon. You might also notice a beautiful yellow-orange glow. That’s because Earth’s atmosphere scatters the blue light, letting the warmer, longer wavelengths pass through to your eyes.
So, what exactly is a lunar standstill exactly? Simply put, the sun moves across our sky along a tilted path. The moon’s orbit is also tilted, but it’s constantly wobbling because of the sun’s pull. Every 18.6 years, this wobble brings the moon to its most extreme tilted position relative to Earth. We’re currently in one of these “major lunar standstills”, a two-year period where the moon appears to rise and set at its highest and lowest points on the horizon.