Be sure to look up tonight: the Strawberry Supermoon arrives.  The first full moon of the summer will take on a strawberry-like pink/red tint and will appear unusually large tonight.  “When low on the horizon, the moon appears redder than what we can typically see, which will be the case Wednesday night,” said Michael Allen of Washington State University’s department of physics and astronomy. When low on the horizon, the moon will also appear a bit larger than usual, but that too is simply an optical illusion.  “It’s a trick in our minds that makes the moon seem bigger than it really is. A low moon is no larger than a high moon,” Allen said.

According to NASA, the red/pink color the moon has is just part of the reason this moon is called the Strawberry Moon. The Maine Farmer’s Almanac first published Native American names for the full Moons in the 1930’s. According to this almanac, this full moon is referred to as the  Strawberry Moon by most Algonquin indian tribes. The name comes from the relatively short season for harvesting strawberries in northeastern North America.

The Super Strawberry Moon will be the last of four supermoons for 2021. Supermoons only happen three to four times a year, and always appear consecutively. The last three supermoons occurred on May 26, April 27, and March 28.

The next supermoon will occur June 14, 2022.