Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 33% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 6 days young.
The moon rises in the morning and sets in the evening. It is visible toward the southwest in early evening.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is leaving the last ∠1° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♊ Gemini later.
Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 6 days on 3 March 2003 at 02:35.
Next Full Moon is the Worm Moon of March 2003 after 8 days on 18 March 2003 at 10:34.
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 8.4% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1777" and ∠1932".
The Moon is 6 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 39 of Meeus index or 992 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 16 hours and 44 minutes and it is 12 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 4 hours longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 3 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 ∠127.8° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠157.7°.
1 day since point of apogee on 7 March 2003 at 16:34 in ♉ Taurus the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 10 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 19 March 2003 at 18:57 in ♎ Libra.
The Moon is 403 313 km (250 607 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 10 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 359 818 km (223 581 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♉ Taurus at 19:23 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 13 days until Moon's next descending node later on 22 March 2003 at 17:37 in ♏ Scorpio.
11 days since the last southern standstill on 26 February 2003 at 05:53 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-26.015° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 3 days to face maximum declination of ∠26.158° at the point of next northern standstill on 12 March 2003 at 19:44 in ♋ Cancer.
At 19:23 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 18 March 2003 at 10:34 in ♍ Virgo the Moon is going to be in a Full Moon geocentric opposition with the Sun and thus forming the next Sun-Earth-Moon 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
