The Strawberry Moon will decorate the sky of Egypt and the Arab world throughout Tuesday night, a week before the summer solstice in the northern half of the planet.
The phenomenon, which shows in June, is associated with the strawberry season in North America: Native Americans named the phenomenon “Strawberry Moon” because its appearance coincided at this time of the year with the season of harvesting strawberry.
People can see the Strawberry Moon, or the “Giant Moon”, when the moon is at its closest point to Earth in its orbit, known as perigee, and appears larger and brighter than a typical full moon.
The Strawberry Moon usually refers to the last full moon in spring or the first moon to rise during the summer season, and the farmers calendar also indicates that this particular giant moon had a number of names in the past.
Among these names are the “green corn moon”, “full flower moon” and “full honey moon”.
Perhaps this name is associated with the “honeymoon” phase because of the tradition of marriage in the month of June.
Although the strawberry full moon reaches its peak on Thursday afternoon, it won’t be visible on the horizon until late evening.
However, this giant moon will not look as pink as a strawberry, but rather will have a more golden color.
Astronomy enthusiasts will have the opportunity to watch the amazing phenomenon from Wednesday morning until Saturday morning.
What makes a supermoon?
But scientists have yet to agree on how to officially classify the phenomenon, with disagreement over whether the June moon is considered a supermoon.
Al-Masry Al-Youm explained the details on the debate according to information provided by the Jeddah Astronomy Society’s official page on Facebook:
*The moon appears as a full moon throughout the night, but scientifically, the term “full moon” comes when the moon is at an angle of 180 degrees from the sun, which will happen at 1:51 pm.
*When the moon is full, this means that it has completed half of its orbit around the Earth during June, 11 hours and 32 minutes before it reaches perigee, which is known to be its closest distance from Earth.
*After a short time at sunset, the giant full moon rises from the southeast horizon.
*The moon is called “Giant Moon” when it is new or full moon when the distance between the center of the moon and the center of the Earth is within 362.146 kilometers.
*The Giant Moon will be 16 percent brighter and its apparent size six percent larger than the average, so there will be no noticeable difference in its apparent size than usual.
The Strawberry Moon appears for planet Earth from June 13 to 15, while the naked eye cannot fully discern the rotation of the moon’s disk.
The peak of the full moon will be tonight, Tuesday, when the moon’s disk is complete and its brightness reaches 99.7 percent.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
