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

Waxing Gibbous in Aries

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 64% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 9 days young.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises in the afternoon and sets after midnight to early morning. It is visible to the southeast in early evening and it is up for most of the night.

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 ∠19° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 1 day on 21 December 2020 at 23:41.

Cold Moon after 6 days

Next Full Moon is the Cold Moon of December 2020 after 6 days on 30 December 2020 at 03:28.

Moderate tide

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.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1773"

Lunar disc appears visually 9.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1773" and ∠1951".

Lunation 259 / 1212

The Moon is 9 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 259 of Meeus index or 1212 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.53 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 12 hours and 44 minutes and it is 1 hour and 21 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 same as the mean

The length of the current synodic month is equal to the mean synodic month length. It is %hours_to_shortest% and %minutes_to_shortest% longer than the 21st century's shortest and %hours_to_longest% and %minutes_to_longest% shorter than the 21st century's longest synodic months.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠30.1°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠30.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠53.8°.

Moon before apogee

10 days since point of perigee on 12 December 2020 at 20:42 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 day until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 24 December 2020 at 16:32 in ♈ Aries.

Distance to Moon 404 372 km

The Moon is 404 372 km (251 265 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next day until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 010 km (251 662 mi).

Moon before ascending node

9 days after descending node on 14 December 2020 at 11:03 in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 5 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 28 December 2020 at 15:03 in ♊ Gemini.

Moon before northern standstill

7 days since the last southern standstill on 15 December 2020 at 22:23 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-24.879° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 6 days to face maximum declination of ∠24.868° at the point of next northern standstill on 30 December 2020 at 07:53 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 6 days

In 6 days on 30 December 2020 at 03:28 in ♋ Cancer 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.

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