Strawberry moon to rise this week

The Super Strawberry moon will light up the Thursday night sky.

ATLANTA — The June full moon is called the Strawberry moon and will be illuminated in the night sky this Thursday, June 23rd. According to some scientists, this is also our last of three Supermoons for 2021.

The moon will become full at 2:40 p.m. on Thursday. It will rise in the southeast sky just before 9 p.m. that evening. 

The Strawberry moon is named for the short strawberry harvest season during the month of June. 

The skies Thursday night in North Georgia should be mostly clear to partly cloudy. 

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Why do we have Supermoons and Micromoons?

The moon does not have a perfect circular orbit around the Earth. It is more of an ellipse. For this reason, sometimes it is closer and sometimes further away from us.

When the full moon is near its closest orbit point to Earth, called perigee, it is called a supermoon. 

In contrast, when the moon is at its furthest point to the Earth it is at its apogee. A full moon during its apogee is known as a micromoon.

There is only about a 50,000 kilometers difference in distance from the Earth during these two opposing celestial events.

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Can you actually tell the difference?

With the naked eye, not really. At least probably not the size of the moon.

The closest of supermoons appear about 8% larger than the average full moon and up to 15% bigger than the further away micromoon. To your naked eye, you probably couldn't tell the difference. 

With the added close proximity to Earth and the sun, a supermoon is also 30% brighter in the night sky than a micromoon. But again, unless you were looking at the two moons side by side, you probably won't notice the difference.

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