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

Waning Crescent in Aries

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 19% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 25 days old.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises after midnight to early morning and sets in the afternoon. It is visible in the early morning low to the east.

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 ♈ Aries

Moon is passing about ∠24° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 3 days on 3 June 2002 at 00:05.

Strawberry Moon after 18 days

Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2002 after 18 days on 24 June 2002 at 21:42.

Neap tide

There is low ocean tide on this date. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at big angle, so their combined tidal force is weak.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1775"

Lunar disc appears visually 6.3% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1775" and ∠1891".

Lunation 29 / 982

The Moon is 25 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 29 of Meeus index or 982 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.54 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 13 hours and 1 minute and it is 2 hours and 21 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°).

Lunation length longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 17 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 6 hours and 46 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠233.6°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠233.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠268.1°.

Moon after apogee

1 day since point of apogee on 4 June 2002 at 12:58 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 12 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 19 June 2002 at 07:24 in ♎ Libra.

Distance to Moon 403 825 km

The Moon is 403 825 km (250 925 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 12 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 369 308 km (229 477 mi).

Moon before ascending node

10 days after descending node on 27 May 2002 at 09:39 in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 4 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 10 June 2002 at 20:00 in ♊ Gemini.

Moon before northern standstill

8 days since the last southern standstill on 29 May 2002 at 02:39 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-25.056° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 6 days to face maximum declination of ∠25.058° at the point of next northern standstill on 12 June 2002 at 14:17 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

22 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♊ Gemini the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 4 days

In 4 days on 10 June 2002 at 23:47 in ♊ Gemini 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.

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