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

Waxing Gibbous in Libra

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 99% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 14 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 is entering ♎ Libra

Moon is passing first ∠3° of ♎ Libra tropical zodiac sector.

7 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 7 days on 28 March 2042 at 12:00.

Pink Moon after 1 day

Next Full Moon is the Pink Moon of April 2042 after 1 day on 5 April 2042 at 14:16.

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 ∠1768"

Lunar disc appears visually 8.2% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1918".

Lunation 522 / 1475

The Moon is 14 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 522 of Meeus index or 1475 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.37 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 8 hours and 56 minutes and it is 20 minutes longer 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 3 hours and 48 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 21 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠359.8°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠359.8° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠15.5°.

Moon at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 05:51 about 13 days since last perigee on 21 March 2042 at 17:40 in ♓ Pisces the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 14 days until point of next perigee on 19 April 2042 at 04:27 in ♈ Aries.

Distance to Moon 406 302 km

This apogee Moon is 406 302 km (252 464 mi) away from Earth. It is 894 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 407 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon before descending node

12 days after ascending node on 23 March 2042 at 10:11 in ♈ Aries 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 6 April 2042 at 12:20 in ♎ Libra.

Moon after northern standstill

7 days since the last northern standstill on 28 March 2042 at 05:49 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠28.188° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠-28.222° at the point of next southern standstill on 12 April 2042 at 00:33 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

12 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♈ Aries the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 1 day

In 1 day on 5 April 2042 at 14:16 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