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 87% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 18 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 ∠16° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 3 days on 23 August 2078 at 08:11.

Sturgeon Moon before 3 days

Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2078 after 26 days on 21 September 2078 at 17:31.

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 ∠1961"

Lunar disc appears visually 3.2% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1961" and ∠1899".

Lunation 972 / 1925

The Moon is 18 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 972 of Meeus index or 1925 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.5 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 12 hours and 7 minutes and it is 3 hours 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 37 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 32 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠80.3°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠80.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠115.1°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 20:12 about 12 days since last apogee on 14 August 2078 at 20:09 in ♏ Scorpio the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 16 days until point of next apogee on 11 September 2078 at 14:50 in ♏ Scorpio.

Distance to Moon 366 786 km

This perigee Moon is 366 786 km (227 910 mi) away from Earth. It is 4 278 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 3 570 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon before ascending node

11 days after descending node on 14 August 2078 at 22:47 in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 28 August 2078 at 09:02 in ♉ Taurus.

Moon before northern standstill

7 days since the last southern standstill on 19 August 2078 at 07:52 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-27.225° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 5 days to face maximum declination of ∠27.321° at the point of next northern standstill on 1 September 2078 at 05:56 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

25 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 10 days

In 10 days on 6 September 2078 at 07:59 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