Minimoon June 2017: Who Can See It?
Late last year, the world was given the opportunity to witness a rare celestial event when the moon came close enough to the Earth that caused people to see a difference from its usual size. Dubbed as the supermoon, people from all over the world looked up to see the moon's beauty up close. Although the next significant supermoon will be sometime this year, another upcoming event is about to give humanity a different perspective of the beautiful moon.
According to Space.com, June 9 is the date to remember for people looking to see the minimoon. In contrast to the supermoon, the minimoon is when a full moon actually looks smaller than usual due to the fact that it's at that part of the orbit when it's farthest from the Earth. The peak of the full moon will be visible for most of Asia, Australia, early risers in Hawaii and parts of Alaska. The event actually begins on June 8 but it won't be at its fullest phase until the next day, at 9:09 a.m. EDT.
According to NASA, the moon has significantly different sizes because its orbit is more elliptical than circular. This allows for events such as the supermoon, otherwise known as a perigee, and a minimoon, also known as an apogee. When it's the former, the moon is on average 225,700 miles from Earth and 252,000 miles when it's the latter. During the event on June 9, the moon will also appear to be near Saturn, which is expected to appear as a star on the south side of the moon. Although Saturn is bright, there's a good chance that the moonlight will overshadow it.
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The minimoon is also popularly known as the Strawberry Moon because June is when the fruit is ripest in certain regions of America. The next one won't be until 2018.
