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

Waning Gibbous in Aries

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 73% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 20 days old.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises in the evening and sets in the morning. It is visible to the southwest and it is high in the sky after 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 ♈ Aries

Moon is leaving the last ∠3° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♉ Taurus later.

5 days after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 5 days on 12 August 2003 at 04:48.

Sturgeon Moon before 5 days

Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2003 after 24 days on 10 September 2003 at 16:36.

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 ∠1777"

Lunar disc appears visually 6.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1777" and ∠1895".

Lunation 44 / 997

The Moon is 20 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 44 of Meeus index or 997 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.44 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 34 minutes and it is 51 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 10 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 59 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠268.5°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠268.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠301°.

Moon before apogee

10 days since point of perigee on 6 August 2003 at 14:06 in ♏ Scorpio 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 19 August 2003 at 14:22 in ♉ Taurus.

Distance to Moon 403 406 km

The Moon is 403 406 km (250 665 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 2 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 102 km (251 097 mi).

Moon before ascending node

11 days after descending node on 6 August 2003 at 06:49 in ♏ Scorpio 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 19 August 2003 at 21:08 in ♉ Taurus.

Moon before northern standstill

8 days since the last southern standstill on 9 August 2003 at 06:19 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-26.553° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 5 days to face maximum declination of ∠26.649° at the point of next northern standstill on 23 August 2003 at 11:41 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 10 days

In 10 days on 27 August 2003 at 17:26 in ♌ Leo 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