Friday night’s Strawberry Moon may solve a Stonehenge mystery

Throughout the previous 60 years, although, some researchers have begun to marvel if Stonehenge was constructed with the motions of the Moon in thoughts, as effectively. Particularly, they have been asking if the format of particular stones surrounding the primary circle — the Station Stones — are positioned to align with moonrise and moonset throughout a significant lunar standstill.

This diagram of the format of Stonehenge options the rectangle that hyperlinks the Station Stones (the 2 current stones and the 2 areas which might be identified to have as soon as held comparable stones), which can have a lunar connection. (Tailored from Astroskiandhike/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

“The strongest proof we’ve got for folks marking the most important lunar standstill comes from the US southwest,” Fabio Silva, Amanda Chadburn, and Erica Ellingson wrote in an article on The Dialog in April 2024. Silva and Chadburn are each researchers within the area of archaeology at Bournemouth College within the U.Ok., whereas Ellingson is a professor emeritus in astrophysics on the College of Colorado Boulder.

“The Nice Home of Chimney Rock, a multi-level advanced constructed by the ancestral Pueblo folks within the San Juan Nationwide Forest, Colorado, greater than 1,000 years in the past,” they defined. “It lies on a ridge that ends at a pure formation of dual rock pillars — an space that has cultural significance to greater than 26 native American tribal nations. From the vantage level of the Nice Home, the Solar won’t ever rise within the hole between the pillars. Nonetheless, throughout a significant standstill the Moon does rise between them in awe-inspiring trend.”

The researchers consider that if one tradition made these sorts of observations, others might have as effectively, together with those that constructed Stonehenge. Particularly, historical cremated human stays have been discovered buried close to the southeast a part of the megalith, which apparently aligns with the southernmost main lunar standstill moonrise.

With the onset of this new main lunar standstill, the researchers plan to watch these potential alignments, two of which ought to happen each month from February 2024 by way of November 2025.

The English Heritage web site is internet hosting a reside stream of the southernmost moonrise from Stonehenge, beginning at 4:30 p.m. EDT on Friday, June 21.