Prime Highlights
- The Strawberry Moon illuminated iconic world landmarks under a rare sky event called the Great Lunar Standstill.
- From the Dubai deserts to the Parthenon of Athens, photographers captured the Moon at its brightest.
Key Facts
- The full moon was brightest on June 11, 2025, on the same day as the Great Lunar Standstill, a rare event happening every 18.6 years.
- Historically referred to as the “Strawberry Moon” by Native Americans because of the time of fruit harvesting.
- Its steep rising and setting angles made it stand out quite noticeably and prominently from many latitudes.
Key Background
The June 2025 Strawberry Moon, a full moon, presented sky gazers all over the world with an extraordinary and unusual lunar event. The origin of “Strawberry Moon” goes as far back as Native American cultures, as the name signifies the start of the wild strawberry harvest period. In other countries, the same moon has been called Rose Moon, Honey Moon, or Lotus Moon—names that suit early summer’s flowering and farming cycle.
What made this year’s Strawberry Moon all the more special was that it also coincided with the Great Lunar Standstill, a one-in-18.6-years phenomenon where the Moon’s orbit is at its widest tilt over Earth’s equator, causing it to rise and set at the greatest north and south extremes on the horizon. This standstill creates an unusual path across the sky, making the moon appear larger and more dramatic in specific regions.
Breathtaking photographs flooded in from around the world. In Dubai, the moon glowed above the futuristic skyline of the city. In Athens, it loomed above the remains of the ancient Parthenon and Temple of Poseidon, bathing the ancient ruins in an otherworldly light. Everywhere else, the moon was photographed flying over London’s cathedrals, Sydney’s skyline, and peaceful shores in Malta and New York.
Experts promote the optimum way to observe such events is from high or dark-sky locations, with binoculars or telescopes to magnify the textures and craters on the moon. The rare angle of the lunar standstill also allowed northern and southern latitudes to benefit from enhanced viewing windows and more acute photography angles.
This full moon itself was not the sole lunar marvel of June 2025. It was preceded by Venus’s June 1 peak elongation and June 7 Arietids meteor shower, and followed by a June 16 Mars–Regulus conjunction. But of all these marvels, the Strawberry Moon was the only one that brought people together—across continents, under one enthralling lunar marvel.
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