Moon Reaches June Apogee 27 Hours After June 21, 2023, Solstice

Summary: Lunar June 2023 apogee occurs 27 and one-half hours after the Wednesday, June 21, solstice opened northern astronomical summer and southern winter.

moon at apogee, Thursday, June 22, 2023, at 18:32 UTC, viewed at 405,384 kilometers from the Tropic of Cancer, 23 degrees 26 minutes North, 0 degrees 00 minutes West: John Walker via Fourmilab

The moon reaches June 2023 apogee one and one-eighth days, or 27 and one-half hours, after the Wednesday, June 21, solstice opened astronomical spring and astronomical winter in the northern and southern hemispheres, respectively.

Earth's two solstices express maximized tilts of Earth's axis toward and away from the sun during Earth's elliptical orbit around the sun. The maximum tilts in June and December have seasonal implications for Earth's northern and southern hemispheres.

"Seasons are caused by the fact that the Earth is tilted on its axis by 23.5°. The tilt's orientation with respect to space does not change during the year; thus, the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the sun in June and away from the sun in December. . .," as stated in "The Seasons, the Equinox, and the Solstices," posted on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Weather Service website, weather.gov, by the National Weather Service's (NWS) Forecast Office in Cleveland, Ohio.

At the instant of the June solstice, Earth's tilt favors the Northern Hemisphere as the target for maximum surface reception of the sun's rays. "The summer solstice occurs when the sun is directly over the Tropic of Cancer, which is located at 23.5° latitude North and runs through Mexico, the Bahamas, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India, and southern China," according to the Cleveland Weather Forecast Office.

The June 2023 solstice takes place Wednesday, June 21, at 14:58 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), according to the Editors of EarthSky's New Year's Day 2023 post, "2023 June solstice: All you need to know." Twenty-seven hours and 34 minutes after the Earth's solstitial interaction with the sun, Earth's moon reaches its monthly astronomical achievement of apogee (Ancient Greek: ἀπόγειον, apógeion, “away from Earth” + ἀπό, apó, “away” + γῆ, gê, “Earth”), farthest center-to-center distance between Earth and moon. Apogee happens Thursday, June 22, at 18:32 UTC, according to computer programmer and computer-aided design (CAD) software company Autodesk co-founder John Walker's apogee calculator on his Fourmilab Switzerland website. June's apogee measured 405,384 kilometers.

June's apogee of 405,384 kilometers exceeds the year's minimum apogee, which references the closest point among the year's far center-to-center distances between Earth and moon. Minimum apogee occurred Friday, April 28, at a distance of 404,299 kilometers. June's apogee of 405,384 surpassed April's apogee by 1,085 kilometers.

The June 2023 apogee of 405,384 kilometers figures as less than the year's maximum apogee, which signifies the farthest point among the year's far center-to-center distances. Maximum apogee takes place Wednesday, Aug. 16, at a distance of 406,634 kilometers. June's apogee of 405,384 kilometers lags behind August's apogee by 1,250 kilometers. A range of 2,335 kilometers separates minimum apogee of 404,299 kilometers and maximum apogee of 406,634 kilometers.

Contrastingly, the June 2022 apogee occurred less coincidentally with the June 2022 solstice than the June 2023 apogee and solstice. Also, the June 2022 apogee logged a greater distance than the June 2023 apogee.

The June 2022 solstice happened Tuesday, June 21, 2022, at 9:14 UTC, according to Bruce McClure in "Longest sunsets happen around the solstice," posted Thursday, June 16, 2022, on the EarthSky website. The month's apogee took place Wednesday, June 29, at 6:10 UTC, 7 days, 20 hours, 56 minutes after the instant of the solstice.

The June 2022 apogee's distance of 406,580 kilometers qualified as the year's maximum apogee. The June 2023 apogee of 405,384 kilometers yields a closer apogee, by 1,196 kilometers, than the June 2022 apogee of 406,580 kilometers.

The center-to-center distance between Earth and moon reached minimum apogee on Thursday, March 10, 2022, at a distance of 404,267 kilometers. A range of 2,313 kilometers separated minimum apogee of 404,267 kilometers and maximum apogee of 406,580. Contrastingly, the June 2023 range of 2,335 kilometers between minimum apogee of 404,299 and maximum apogee of 406,634 exceeds the 2022 minimum-maximum range of 2,313 kilometers by only 22 kilometers.

The Wednesday, June 21, 2023, solstice took place 365 days, 5 hours, 44 minutes after the Tuesday, June 21, 2022, solstice. The next June solstice is expected on Thursday, June 20, 2024, at 20:51 UTC, according to "Earth Seasons -- Equinoxes and Solstices -- 2023-2026," calculated by the U.S. Naval Observatory's Astronomical Applications Department. The June 2023 solstice will occur 365 days, 5 hours, 53 minutes after the June 2022 solstice.

moon at instant of Earth's solstice Wednesday, June 21, 2023, at 14:58 UTC, viewed at 404,414 kilometers from the Tropic of Cancer, 23 degrees 26 minutes North, 0 degrees 00 minutes West; distance of 404,575 kilometers, per The Nine Planets website: John Walker via Fourmilab

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Dedication

This post is dedicated to the memory of our beloved blue-eyed brother, Charles, who guided the creation of the Met Opera and Astronomy posts on Earth and Space News. We memorialized our brother in "Our Beloved Blue-Eyed Brother, Charles, With Whom We Are Well Pleased," published on Earth and Space News on Thursday, Nov. 18, 2021, an anniversary of our beloved father's death.

Image credits:

moon at apogee, Thursday, June 22, 2023, at 18:32 UTC, viewed at 405,384 kilometers from the Tropic of Cancer, 23 degrees 26 minutes North, 0 degrees 00 minutes West: John Walker via Fourmilab @ https://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Earth

moon at instant of Earth's solstice Wednesday, June 21, 2023, at 14:58 UTC, viewed at 404,414 kilometers from the Tropic of Cancer, 23 degrees 26 minutes North, 0 degrees 00 minutes West; distance of 404,575 kilometers, per The Nine Planets website: John Walker via Fourmilab @ https://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Earth

For further information:

Arnett, Bill. "Moon Phase for Wednesday Jun 21st, 2023." The Nine Planets > Solar System > Moon Phases.
Available @ https://nineplanets.org/moon/phase/6-21-2023/

Marriner, Derdriu. "12 Days After June Solstice Earth Reaches 2017 Aphelion Monday, July 3." Earth and Space News. Wednesday, June 28, 2017.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2017/06/12-days-after-june-solstice-earth.html

Marriner, Derdriu. "First 2023 Solstice Happens Wednesday, June 21, at 14:58 UTC." Earth and Space News. Wednesday, June 7, 2023.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2023/06/first-2023-solstice-happens-wednesday.html

Marriner, Derdriu. "June 21, 2023, Solstice Is Wintry for American Samoa and Jarvis Island." Earth and Space News. Wednesday, June 14, 2023.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2023/06/june-21-2023-solstice-is-wintry-for.html

McClure, Bruce. "Longest sunsets happen around the solstice." EarthSky > Tonight. June 16, 2022.
Available @ https://earthsky.org/tonight/longest-sunsets-around-solstices/

National Weather Service Forecast Office Cleveland, Ohio. "The Seasons, the Equinox, and the Solstices." Weather.gov > Cleveland, OH.
Available @ https://www.weather.gov/cle/Seasons

U.S. Naval Observatory. "Earth Seasons -- Equinoxes and Solstices -- 2023-2026." U.S. Naval Observatory > Astronomical Applications Department.
Available @ https://www.weather.gov/media/ind/seasons.pdf

Walker, John. "2022 Apogees and Perigees." Fourmilab > Earth and Moon Viewer > Viewing the Moon > Lunar Perigee and Apogee Calculator.
Available @ https://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/pacalc.html

Walker, John. "2023 Apogees and Perigees." Fourmilab > Earth and Moon Viewer > Viewing the Moon > Lunar Perigee and Apogee Calculator.
Available @ https://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/pacalc.html