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

Waxing Gibbous in Gemini

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 83% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 11 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 ♊ Gemini

Moon is passing first ∠3° of ♊ Gemini tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 3 days on 9 January 2052 at 09:27.

Wolf Moon after 3 days

Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2052 after 3 days on 16 January 2052 at 04:24.

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 ∠1965"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.7% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1965" and ∠1951".

Lunation 643 / 1596

The Moon is 11 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 643 of Meeus index or 1596 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.64 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 25 minutes and it is 2 hours and 19 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 2 hours and 41 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 22 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠248.4°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠248.4° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠285.5°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 14:41 about 15 days since last apogee on 27 December 2051 at 16:05 in ♎ Libra the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 12 days until point of next apogee on 24 January 2052 at 12:51 in ♏ Scorpio.

Distance to Moon 367 399 km

This perigee Moon is 367 399 km (228 291 mi) away from Earth. It is 4 891 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 2 957 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon after descending node

3 days after descending node on 9 January 2052 at 09:32 in ♈ Aries the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 10 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 22 January 2052 at 12:23 in ♎ Libra.

Moon before northern standstill

11 days since the last southern standstill on 31 December 2051 at 19:43 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-18.780° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠18.725° at the point of next northern standstill on 14 January 2052 at 01:12 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 3 days

In 3 days on 16 January 2052 at 04:24 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