The Skies of June, 2025

June Skies

Written by Dick Cookman

Highlights: Comet Journal, Martian Landers, Meteor Showers, Planet Plotting, June Moon.

Focus Constellations: Ursa Major, Draco, Ursa Minor, Cepheus, Cassiopeia, Camelopardalis, Lynx, Leo Minor, Leo, Coma Berenices, Virgo, Bootes, Corona Borealis, Hercules, Lyra, Cygnus, Aquila

•      Comet Journal

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) is in Cygnus at 13th magnitude and, as Earth moves around the Sun each year, the comet will appear to move in ever diminishing spirals centered between Aquila and Hercules as it retreats to the Oort Belt. Its return, if ever, will require more time than has elapsed since the last dinosaur walked the Earth.

C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) is a 13th magnitude Oort Belt comet rising in the evening in Pegasus. Perihelion passage is in October in Virgo when it may reach 8th magnitude. It is closest to Earth in late November.

•      Mars Landers

Did you know that Mars sputters? The June 2nd Mars Daily website states “NASA's MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere Volatile Evolution) mission has, for the first time, reported a direct observation of an elusive atmospheric escape process called sputtering that could help answer longstanding questions about the history of water loss on Mars. Scientists have known for a long time, through an abundance of evidence, that water was present on Mars' surface billions of years ago, but are still asking the crucial question, "Where did the water go and why?"

Early on in Mars' history, the atmosphere of the Red Planet lost its magnetic field, and its atmosphere became directly exposed to the solar wind and solar storms. As the atmosphere began to erode, liquid water was no longer stable on the surface, so much of it escaped to space. But how did this once thick atmosphere get stripped away? Sputtering could explain it.

Sputtering is an atmospheric escape process in which atoms are knocked out of the atmosphere by energetic charge particles. "It's like doing a cannonball in a pool," said Shannon Curry, principal investigator of MAVEN at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder and lead author of the study. "The cannonball, in this case, is the heavy ions crashing into the atmosphere really fast and splashing neutral atoms and molecules out."

While scientists had previously found traces of evidence that this process was happening, they had never observed the process directly. The previous evidence came from looking at lighter and heavier isotopes of argon in the upper atmosphere of Mars. Lighter isotopes sit higher in the atmosphere than their heavier counterparts, and it was found that there were far fewer lighter isotopes than heavy argon isotopes in the Martian atmosphere. These lighter isotopes can only be removed by sputtering. "It is like we found the ashes from a campfire," said Curry. "But we wanted to see the actual fire, in this case sputtering, directly."

•      Meteor Showers

The Arietids on June 7 and the June Lyrids on the 15th are minor meteor showers in northern skies. The June Bootids on the 27th are much better, producing about 1-2 meteors/minute in dark skies. The Bootids are quite easy to see because they are bright and relatively slow moving.

June 27: June Bootids, Active June 22-July 2, Radiant 14h56m +48°, ZHR 50 to 100, 18 km/sec., Waxing Crescent Moon, Progenitor: Comet 7P/Pons-Winnecke.

•      Planet Plottings

Mercury (-1.8 to +0.4) in Taurus, Gemini, and Cancer, Mars (1.2 to 1.5) in Leo, and Jupiter (-1.8 to -1.7) in Taurus and Gemini are the evening planets in the western evening sky in June. Jupiter’s reign is bright and brief. It shines in the glow of sunset for the first week of June, then drops below the horizon to reach its appointed conjunction with the Sun on the 24th, four days after summer starts on the June Solstice at 10:42PM EDT on the 20th. On the 6th, fleet Mercury joins the giant planet and is within 2° on the 8th before Jupiter disappears. After superior conjunction with the Sun on May 30, Mercury displays a full disk in early June when it is brightest. It dims as it races toward Earth, presenting us with a crescent in early July which disappears at inferior conjunction with the Sun on the 31st.

Mars is visible throughout June near Regulus in Leo. On the 16th, Mars is within a degree of the regal “little king” - a four headed quadruple star system with a sub giant blue-white star, and Sun-like white dwarf companions. Venus (-4.2 to -4.0), Uranus (+5.8), Saturn (1.1 to 1.0), and Neptune (7.9) are morning planets in Pisces and Taurus. Saturn and Neptune appear higher above the horizon and are close together in Pisces, approaching within a degree of one another on the 29th. Venus drops below Pisces, approaching Uranus in Taurus on the eastern horizon at month’s end.

•      June Moon

June’s New Moon in Auriga on the 25th at 6:32AM EDT marks the start of Lunation 1268. It ends 29.86 days later with July 24’s New Moon at 3:11PM EDT. The Full Moon on the 11th at 3:44AM EDT in Ophiuchus is Flower, Rose, or Strawberry Moon. Colonial Americans called it “Rose Moon”. To the Celts it was “Moon of Horses”, and it is “Lotus Moon” in China. Medieval English thought of it as “Dyan Moon”, For Anishinaabe (Odawa and Ojibwe) people it is Ode’imini-giizis (Strawberry Moon).

Nanaboujou (the Protecting Spirit or Sleeping Giant), rising in Scorpius in the southeast in early evening, represents the summer season (Niibin). He is remarkable, a sacred teacher and heroic trickster playing a central role in many indigenous stories. Bamewawagezhikaquay married Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, changing her name to Jane Johnston Schoolcraft. She mesmerized him with stories about Nanaboujou, some of which he included in a collection of oral narratives in 1839. In “The Song of Hiawatha”, Longfellow unfortunately distorted Nanaboujou’s legend, thus supporting the indigenous holocaust. To honor Hiawatha, one of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (Iroquois) founders, he changed Nanaboujou’s name to Hiawatha and, with excessive poetic license, altered his teachings and ideals by merging them with Hiawatha’s activities. Ontario’s Earth Haven Farm presents cultural teachings of the Mississauga branch of the Anishinabek Nation including the cycle of life and nature of the 13 Grandmother Moons. “The sixth moon of Creation is Strawberry Moon. The medicine of the strawberry is reconciliation. It was during this moon cycle that communities usually held their annual feasts, welcoming everyone home, regardless of their differences over the past year, letting go of judgment and/or self-righteousness.”

Lunar Apogee (maximum lunar distance of 251,999 mi. (63.59 Earth radii) is on June 7 at 6:44AM EDT. Lunar perigee is on June 23 at 12:44AM EDT. The Moon is at 225,668 mi. (56.94 Earth radii). The waxing crescent Moon passes Mars on the 1st. The waning gibbous Moon passes Saturn and Neptune on the 18th and the waning crescent passes Venus and Uranus on the 22nd and Jupiter on the 25th, 3 hours and 17 minutes before New Moon. The waxing crescent Moon passes Mercury on the 27th, and Mars on the 29th.