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 96% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 16 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 passing about ∠23° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 1 day on 20 September 2040 at 17:43.

Harvest Moon before 1 day

Next Full Moon is the Hunter Moon of October 2040 after 27 days on 20 October 2040 at 04:50.

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 ∠1884"

Lunar disc appears visually 1.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1884" and ∠1912".

Lunation 503 / 1456

The Moon is 16 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 503 of Meeus index or 1456 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.59 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 14 hours and 12 minutes and it is 42 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 1 hour and 28 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 35 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠226.5°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠226.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠261.6°.

Moon after perigee

4 days since point of perigee on 18 September 2040 at 06:43 in ♒ Aquarius the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 7 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 30 September 2040 at 02:50 in ♋ Cancer.

Distance to Moon 380 524 km

The Moon is 380 524 km (236 447 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 7 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 658 km (251 443 mi).

Moon before ascending node

10 days after descending node on 12 September 2040 at 06:11 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 24 September 2040 at 23:04 in ♉ Taurus.

Moon before northern standstill

7 days since the last southern standstill on 15 September 2040 at 06:36 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-26.529° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 5 days to face maximum declination of ∠26.630° at the point of next northern standstill on 28 September 2040 at 10:20 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 13 days

In 13 days on 6 October 2040 at 05:26 in ♎ Libra 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