Last Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 49% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 22 days old.
* The exact date and time of this Last Quarter phase is on 6 April 2010 at 09:37 UTC.
The moon rises at midnight and sets at noon. It is visible to the south in the morning.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is passing about ∠18° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Pink Moon of April 2010 after 22 days on 28 April 2010 at 12:18.
There is medium ocean tide on this date. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at very acute angle, so their combined tidal force is moderate.
Lunar disc appears visually 7.2% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1785" and ∠1917".
The Moon is 22 days old and navigating through the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 126 of Meeus index or 1079 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 28 minutes and it is 2 hours and 53 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to decrease with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at perigee (∠0° or ∠360°).
The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 44 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 19 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠215.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠247.4°.
9 days since point of perigee on 28 March 2010 at 04:56 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 2 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 9 April 2010 at 02:45 in ♒ Aquarius.
The Moon is 401 623 km (249 557 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 2 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 999 km (251 655 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♑ Capricorn at 09:45 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 14 days until Moon's next descending node later on 20 April 2010 at 13:38 in ♋ Cancer.
2 days since the last southern standstill on 4 April 2010 at 05:23 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-25.311° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 12 days to face maximum declination of ∠25.182° at the point of next northern standstill on 18 April 2010 at 17:15 in ♊ Gemini.
At 09:45 in the point ot ascending node the Moon is completing the last draconic month and is entering a new one while the lunar orbit is crossing the ecliptic from South to North.
In 8 days on 14 April 2010 at 12:29 in ♈ Aries the Moon is going to be in a New Moon geocentric conjunction with the Sun and thus forming the next Sun-Moon-Earth syzygy alignment.
Parts of this Lunar Calendar are based on Planetary Ephemeris Data Courtesy of Fred Espenak, www.Astropixels.com
Moon phase image credit to NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio, svs.gsfc.nasa.gov