Full Moon
Full MoonImage credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.(large image)

Full Moon in Libra

Full Moon on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 100%. The lunar cycle is 15 days old.

* The exact date and time of this Full Moon phase is on 27 March 2013 at 09:27 UTC.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises at sunset and sets at sunrise. It is visible all night and it is high in the sky around midnight.

Moon phases on nearby dates

Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.

Upcoming main moon phases

Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.

Moon phase and lunation details

Moon in ♎ Libra

Moon is passing about ∠8° of ♎ Libra tropical zodiac sector.

It is Worm Moon

The Full Moon these days is the Worm of March 2013.

Spring tide

There is high Full Moon ocean tide on this date. Combined Sun and Moon gravitational tidal force working on Earth is strong, because of the Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy alignment.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1899"

Lunar disc appears visually 1.2% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1899" and ∠1922".

Lunation 163 / 1116

The Moon is 15 days old and navigating through the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 163 of Meeus index or 1116 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.57 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 13 hours and 44 minutes and it is 1 hour and 9 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to increase with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at apogee (∠180°).

Lunation length longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 1 hour longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 6 hours and 3 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠73.6°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠73.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠110.3°.

Moon before perigee

8 days since point of apogee on 19 March 2013 at 03:13 in ♊ Gemini the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 3 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 31 March 2013 at 03:55 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Distance to Moon 377 528 km

The Moon is 377 528 km (234 585 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 3 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 367 494 km (228 350 mi).

Moon before ascending node

11 days after descending node on 16 March 2013 at 06:15 in ♉ Taurus the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 2 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 30 March 2013 at 05:55 in ♏ Scorpio.

Moon before southern standstill

8 days since the last northern standstill on 18 March 2013 at 21:50 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠20.335° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 5 days to face maximum declination of ∠-20.250° at the point of next southern standstill on 1 April 2013 at 12:03 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

24 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy

The Moon is in a Full Moon geocentric opposition with the Sun and thus forming Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy alignment.

Lunar calendar

Sources and credits

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