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 92% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 17 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 ∠5° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 2 days on 22 August 2051 at 01:35.

Sturgeon Moon before 2 days

Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2051 after 26 days on 20 September 2051 at 10:11.

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 ∠1967"

Lunar disc appears visually 3.5% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1967" and ∠1898".

Lunation 638 / 1591

The Moon is 17 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 638 of Meeus index or 1591 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.56 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 13 hours and 28 minutes and it is 2 hours and 46 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 44 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 6 hours and 19 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠104.1°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠104.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠137°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 08:43 about 11 days since last apogee on 12 August 2051 at 11:22 in ♎ Libra the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 15 days until point of next apogee on 9 September 2051 at 04:18 in ♏ Scorpio.

Distance to Moon 363 298 km

This perigee Moon is 363 298 km (225 743 mi) away from Earth. It is 790 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 7 058 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon before descending node

12 days after ascending node on 12 August 2051 at 11:44 in ♎ Libra the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 25 August 2051 at 20:56 in ♈ Aries.

Moon before northern standstill

7 days since the last southern standstill on 17 August 2051 at 06:45 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-18.946° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 5 days to face maximum declination of ∠18.858° at the point of next northern standstill on 30 August 2051 at 01:37 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 11 days

In 11 days on 5 September 2051 at 04:33 in ♍ Virgo 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