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

Waxing Crescent in Taurus

Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 6% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 2 days young.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises in the morning and sets in the evening. It is visible toward the southwest in early evening.

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 is entering ♉ Taurus

Moon is passing first ∠3° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 2 days on 23 March 2031 at 03:49.

Pink Moon after 13 days

Next Full Moon is the Pink Moon of April 2031 after 13 days on 7 April 2031 at 17:21.

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 ∠1822"

Lunar disc appears visually 5.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1822" and ∠1924".

Lunation 386 / 1339

The Moon is 2 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 386 of Meeus index or 1339 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.55 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 13 hours and 8 minutes and it is 1 hour and 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°).

Lunation length longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 24 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 6 hours and 39 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠70.3°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠70.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠106.4°.

Moon before apogee

7 days since point of perigee on 17 March 2031 at 18:58 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 5 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 30 March 2031 at 15:24 in ♊ Gemini.

Distance to Moon 393 502 km

The Moon is 393 502 km (244 511 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 5 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 227 km (251 175 mi).

Moon before descending node

11 days after ascending node on 14 March 2031 at 11:38 in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 2 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 27 March 2031 at 14:22 in ♉ Taurus.

Moon before northern standstill

9 days since the last southern standstill on 15 March 2031 at 19:06 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-21.353° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 3 days to face maximum declination of ∠21.242° at the point of next northern standstill on 29 March 2031 at 04:58 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

11 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 13 days

In 13 days on 7 April 2031 at 17:21 in ♎ Libra 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