The second supermoon of 2022 is slated to light up the night skies this week, but don’t worry if Mother Nature clouds your view.
The Virtual Telescope Project in Ceccano, Italy, will host a free livestream of June’s Strawberry Moon on Tuesday as it rises over Rome. The webcast is slated to begin at 3:15 p.m. EDT, Space.com reported.
According to The Washington Post, Tuesday’s spectacle constitutes the first of three summer of 2022 supermoons, a phenomenon recorded when a full moon also happens to be at its closest distance to Earth in its orbit, known as perigee.
“We will admire the full moon rising above the glorious monuments of Rome, the Eternal City,” Virtual Telescope Project astrophysicist Gianluca Masi wrote in an email alert, obtained by Space.com.
According to the space and astronomy-centric news outlet, June’s Full Strawberry Supermoon will peak at 7:51 a.m. EDT, but the moon will appear full to sky watchers in both the day before and after the actual event.
The phenomenon is so named because it coincides with a short strawberry harvesting season, Space.com reported.
The 2022 Strawberry Moon will come within 222,238 miles of Earth – or about about 16,000 miles closer than its average distance – at around 7:24 p.m. Tuesday and could be about 7% larger and 15% brighter than a regular full moon, the Post reported.
According to NASA, June’s supermoon will also be the lowest full moon of 2022, hovering only about 23.3 degrees above the horizon at 1:56 a.m. EDT Wednesday.
Meanwhile, avid sky gazers should also mark their calendars for the June 21 summer solstice, marking the astronomical start of summer, as well as the June 24 predawn alignment of Earth’s five closest planetary neighbors, the first such visible alignment in 18 years, the Post reported.