Latest news with #LowellObservatory
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Photos: Strawberry Moon wows across the world
June's Strawberry Moon put on a show around the world with a slight berry hue and a view low on the horizon for the first time since last summer. The Strawberry Moon reached peak illumination around 3 a.m. on Wednesday and appeared full and bright on Tuesday evening. The video at the top of this story was taken on Tuesday from Chicago, where the lucky photographer captured a helicopter and plane passing in front of the glowing Moon. The final full Moon of spring is named the Strawberry Moon for the time when the berries are ripe for picking and also the slight reddish hue because it is lower in the sky. "When it spends more of that time in that lower portion of the sky, you're looking through more of Earth's atmosphere, which makes these moons generally look redder and more golden," said Dr. Tyler Richey-Yowell, a postdoctoral fellow at Lowell Observatory in Arizona. This golden glow was on display Tuesdsay night in New York City, where the Empire State Building and the Moon made a beautiful pair. How To Photograph The Moon With Your Phone In Florida, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft presented a trifecta of space with the Moon looming large in the night sky. Saharan dust moving up the Southeast coast could have contributed to the yellow and orange tint of the Moon on Tuesday. Wildfire smoke provided an added boost to the red coloring of the Moon in Columbus, Ohio, as the image below shows. In the United Kingdom, the Moon appeared berry red near the northeast coast of England along Whitley Bay. A golden Moon appeared peaking out from behind the mausoleum of Mustafa in Turkey on Tuesday in the creatively set image article source: Photos: Strawberry Moon wows across the world
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Why Strawberry Moon will appear more red than usual
The Strawberry Moon will be fullest early Wednesday, but the evening before will be the best time to see the last full Moon of spring as it may appear more red than usual. The Strawberry Moon gets its name from the time when the berry is ripe for picking, but it also corresponds with the slight hue as the Moon is lower in the sky during the evening hours. June's full Moon ushers in the best time of year for evening Moon-gazing. Dr. Tyler Richey-Yowell, a postdoctoral fellow at Lowell Observatory in Arizona, said this is the first Moon to appear this low on the horizon in about a year. How To Photograph The Moon With Your Phone "When it spends more of that time in that lower portion of the sky, you're looking through more of Earth's atmosphere, which makes these moons generally look redder and more golden. And also, they appear bigger," Richey-Yowell said. "The atmosphere actually bends some of the light. And so while there's not really any astronomical significance to moons in the summer, we do actually get cooler, bigger, prettier moons in the summer." This year, the Strawberry Moon may appear more berry-like with a hint of red and orange because of two ongoing weather events. In the Southeast, Saharan dust crawling up the Southeast coast can also scatter light in a way that creates vibrant sunrises and sunsets, as well as a tint to the Moon. If the dust is still in the atmosphere, the Moon will appear more red because of the dust, according to Richey-Yowell. Meanwhile, in the North, wildfire smoke continues to waft into the northern Plains and Great Lakes regions from Canada. The smoke has reduced air quality, but if residents can see through the haze, these smoke particles scatter wavelengths of light differently, which can sometimes result in colorful red skies. Smoke particles tend to scatter more blue light than red light, leaving the remaining red light coming through. The same effect happens with the Moon. For the Strawberry Moon on Wednesday, it will be at its biggest and brightest after midnight (Pacific time) and after 3 a.m. (Eastern time). Next month, the full Buck Moon appears at its fullest just after 4 p.m. ET on July 11, which will make for a spectacular sunset and article source: Why Strawberry Moon will appear more red than usual
New York Post
10-06-2025
- Science
- New York Post
June's Strawberry Moon ushers in best time of year to view our celestial neighbor
Known as the Strawberry Moon, the last full Moon of spring rises early Wednesday, beginning the best time of year to enjoy our celestial neighbor. Dr. Tyler Richey-Yowell, a postdoctoral fellow at Lowell Observatory in Arizona, said this is the first Moon to appear this low on the horizon in about a year. June's full Moon is the last of astronomical spring, even though if you ask a meteorologist, summer is already in full swing. 'The Moon going across the night sky is always going to be a little lower because, in the summertime into the summer, the Sun goes higher and higher in the sky just because of our orbit. And so the Moon, being completely opposite of that, gets lower and lower,' she said. The Strawberry Moon gets its name from the time when the berry is ready for picking, but it also corresponds with the slight hue as the Moon is lower in the sky. 'When it spends more of that time in that lower portion of the sky, you're looking through more of Earth's atmosphere, which makes these moons generally look redder and more golden. And also, they appear bigger,' Richey-Yowell said. 'The atmosphere actually bends some of the light. And so while there's not really any astronomical significance to moons in the summer, we do actually get cooler, bigger, prettier moons in the summer.' 3 People posing in front of the 'Strawberry Moon over the New York City skyline on June 21, 2024. Photo byFor some in the northern tier and Southeast, the Strawberry Moon may be especially colorful this year. Saharan dust arriving to Florida and crawling up the Southeast coast can also scatter light in a way that creates vibrant sunrises and sunsets, as well as a tint to the Moon. In the North, wildfire smoke from Canada has reduced air quality but also had the same effect on the sky color. 3 The next Strawberry Moon will rise on Wednesday. Getty Images How to photograph the Strawberry Moon Richey-Yowell said the best time to enjoy the Moon throughout the summer is right after sunset, when the Moon is peeking up over the horizon. During this time, the Moon can appear to have a reddish tint. For the Strawberry Moon on Wednesday, it will be at its biggest and brightest after midnight (Pacific time) and after 3 a.m. (Eastern time). 3 The 2024 Strawberry Moon seen over the Statue of Liberty. Photo by'If you're a night person, that would be the time to go up and see it,' she said. With an earlier time of day to see the Moon in late spring and this summer, it's a good chance to practice photographing our only satellite. If you plan to use a smartphone or camera, Richey-Yowell recommends finding something to stabilize your device. 'Turning down the saturation on your phone is typically what I do. The Moon's actually just really good for holding up to a telescope as well,' she said. 'They also make some really nice like phone holders that you can attach to your own personal telescope.' The Strawberry Moon will make good practice for next month. The full Buck Moon appears at its fullest just after 4 p.m. ET on July 11, which will make for a spectacular sunset and Moon.
Yahoo
08-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
June's Strawberry Moon ushers in best time of year to view the Moon
Known as the Strawberry Moon, the last full Moon of spring rises early Wednesday, beginning the best time of year to enjoy our celestial neighbor. Dr. Tyler Richey-Yowell, a postdoctoral fellow at Lowell Observatory in Arizona, said this is the first Moon to appear this low on the horizon in about a year. June's full Moon is the last of astronomical spring, even though if you ask a meteorologist, summer is already in full swing. "The Moon going across the night sky is always going to be a little lower because, in the summertime into the summer, the Sun goes higher and higher in the sky just because of our orbit. And so the Moon, being completely opposite of that, gets lower and lower," she said. Moon Shot: 7 Tips On How To Photograph The Moon The Strawberry Moon gets its name from the time when the berry is ready for picking, but it also corresponds with the slight hue as the Moon is lower in the sky. "When it spends more of that time in that lower portion of the sky, you're looking through more of Earth's atmosphere, which makes these moons generally look redder and more golden. And also, they appear bigger," Richey-Yowell said. "The atmosphere actually bends some of the light. And so while there's not really any astronomical significance to moons in the summer, we do actually get cooler, bigger, prettier moons in the summer." For some in the northern tier and Southeast, the Strawberry Moon may be especially colorful this year. Saharan dust arriving to Florida and crawling up the Southeast coast can also scatter light in a way that creates vibrant sunrises and sunsets, as well as a tint to the Moon. In the North, wildfire smoke from Canada has reduced air quality but also had the same effect on the sky color. Richey-Yowell said the best time to enjoy the Moon throughout the summer is right after sunset, when the Moon is peeking up over the horizon. During this time, the Moon can appear to have a reddish tint. For the Strawberry Moon on Wednesday, it will be at its biggest and brightest after midnight (Pacific time) and after 3 a.m. (Eastern time). How To Photograph The Moon With Your Phone "If you're a night person, that would be the time to go up and see it," she said. With an earlier time of day to see the Moon in late spring and this summer, it's a good chance to practice photographing our only satellite. If you plan to use a smartphone or camera, Richey-Yowell recommends finding something to stabilize your device. "Turning down the saturation on your phone is typically what I do. The Moon's actually just really good for holding up to a telescope as well," she said. "They also make some really nice like phone holders that you can attach to your own personal telescope." The Strawberry Moon will make good practice for next month. The full Buck Moon appears at its fullest just after 4 p.m. ET on July 11, which will make for a spectacular sunset and article source: June's Strawberry Moon ushers in best time of year to view the Moon
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
China's Tianwen-2 mission launches to explore asteroid that may be a lunar fragment
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. China has launched an ambitious mission to study two intriguing objects in our solar system, the likes of which have never been visited by a spacecraft before. The Tianwen-2 mission launched aboard a Long March 3B rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province at 1:31 p.m. ET on Wednesday (1:31 a.m. Thursday local time in China), according to the China National Space Administration. Like Tianwen-1, which lifted off in July 2020 with two aims — delivering an orbiter and a rover to Mars — Tianwen-2 has two goals. The mission's initial goal is to fly by and collect the country's first samples from an asteroid. The space rock, called Kamoʻoalewa or asteroid 2016 HO3, may be a chunk chipped off the moon, which has become a 'quasi-satellite' near our planet. The spacecraft will spend one year flying to the asteroid and another year orbiting and assessing potential landing sites. After dropping off those samples at Earth via a capsule about 2 ½ years from now, the mission will then take seven years to reach an unusual object called main belt comet 311P/Pan-STARRS and conduct a flyby. Sometimes referred to as an active asteroid, the celestial object orbits between Mars and Jupiter and produces dusty, comet-like tails. Both Kamoʻoalewa and 311P/Pan-STARRS are incredibly interesting targets that stem from populations of objects that, up until a couple of years ago, astronomers barely knew existed, said Dr. Teddy Kareta, a postdoctoral associate of planetary science at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. 'Now we get to study them up close in a kind of detail that will really revolutionize our understanding of them and objects like them,' Kareta said in an email. 'Plus, any time we see a new kind of Solar System object for the first time with a spacecraft … it's like opening presents on your birthday. Whatever's underneath the wrapping paper, it's always exciting to see something for the first time and to try to do your best to understand it.' Astronomers first discovered Kamoʻoalewa in 2016 using the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System, or Pan-STARRS, telescope in Hawaii. Ben Sharkey, now a visiting senior faculty specialist at the University of Maryland, College Park, led a study published in November 2021 suggesting that the Ferris wheel-size asteroid may be a massive boulder ejected from the moon by an impact. The name Kamoʻoalewa comes from a Hawaiian creation chant that alludes to an offspring traveling on its own. It will be the smallest asteroid ever visited, measuring between 150 and 190 feet (46 and 58 meters) in diameter, said Dr. Patrick Michel, director of research exceptional class at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. Michel also served as a coinvestigator on missions by NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency — OSIRIS-REx and Hayabusa2, respectively — that returned asteroid samples to Earth. Bennu, the asteroid sampled by OSIRIS-REx, had a diameter similar to the height of the Empire State Building, or 1,614 feet (492 meters). Kamoʻoalewa is a quasi-satellite, a type of near-Earth asteroid that orbits the sun but sticks close to Earth, coming within about 9 million miles (14.5 million kilometers) of our planet. 'Until Ben Sharkey … saw that it reflected light like the Moon, we didn't think there were chunks of the Moon out in near-Earth space,' Kareta said. 'The Moon's covered in craters, but who knew that the violent formation of those craters might toss tennis court sized rocks seemingly intact that we could find and study thousands or millions of years later?' Studying and sampling Kamoʻoalewa could help astronomers determine whether the space rock actually originated from the moon or if it just reflects light similarly, Kareta said. Kareta is also involved with a study led by Sharkey that will use the James Webb Space Telescope to study Kamoʻoalewa in more detail next year. 'If it's actually from the Moon, then we might be able to identify other lunar samples that have similar properties and help to get an idea of where it came from on the lunar surface,' Kareta said. 'If it just looks like the Moon but is actually from somewhere else, the sample will facilitate a radically more informed search for where Kamoʻoalewa actually came from.' The mission could also shed light on asteroids that can cause damage if they were to strike Earth. Kamoʻoalewa is comparable in size to the object that devastated Tunguska in Siberia over a century ago, Michel said. A roughly 98-foot-wide (30-meter-wide) asteroid struck the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in a remote Siberian forest of Russia in 1908, according to The Planetary Society. The event leveled trees and destroyed forests across 830 square miles (2,150 square kilometers). Orbiting and landing on such a small body is complicated, which is part of what makes the mission both interesting and risky, Michel said. 'To get into orbit, you really have to get very close, and even if you just follow it, the maneuvers remain very sensitive, because there's really very little gravity and its rapid rotation forgives no mistakes,' Michel said. 'Plus, the plan is to get a sample, so there are not many areas where the probe can land safely.' The space rock 311P/Pan-STARRS is one of the best-studied active asteroids, Kareta said. 'Even just (25) years ago, we didn't know there were active asteroids at all — scientists thought that only icy comets from the outer Solar System could produce comet-like tails, but it turns out that a couple of dozen asteroids do so as well without much or any ice involved,' Kareta said. Astronomers have come up with a number of hypotheses for why the object is throwing off dust, including posing the existence of pressure pockets that eject material and the idea that other objects could be impacting 311P/Pan-STARRS and releasing elements, Michel said. Flying by the active asteroid could show exactly what processes are creating the dusty tails streaming from the object and might reveal possibilities scientists haven't even considered, Kareta said. 'This will be the first time such an object is observed up close and we can determine which mechanism (there may be others) drives the activity,' Michel said. The data gathered by Tianwen-2 could enhance a wide range of studies of objects within the inner solar system, which includes Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and the asteroid belt, Kareta said. 'There's a tremendous amount we don't know about either object,' Kareta said. 'I don't think any spacecraft has ever gotten to its target and not found at least a few big surprises — I'm sure some of our current understanding for either object is completely wrong, and I'm excited to see how.'
