First Quarter today: . The illuminated surface of the moon is 60% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 8 December 2024 at 15:27 UTC.
The moon rises at noon and sets at midnight. It is visible high in the southern sky in early evening.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is leaving the last ∠1° of ♓ Pisces tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♈ Aries later.
Next Full Moon is the Cold Moon of December 2024 after 5 days on 15 December 2024 at 09:02.
There is medium ocean tide today. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at very acute angle, so their combined tidal force is moderate.
Lunar disc appears visually 1% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1968" and ∠1948".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 308 of Meeus index or 1261 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 16 hours and 5 minutes and it is 1 hour and 56 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 3 hours and 21 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 42 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠235.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠272.9°.
13 days since point of apogee on 26 November 2024 at 11:56 in ♎ Libra the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 3 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 12 December 2024 at 13:18 in ♉ Taurus.
The Moon is 364 277 km (226 351 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 3 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 365 360 km (227 024 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♓ Pisces at 19:36 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 13 days until Moon's next descending node later on 22 December 2024 at 23:21 in ♍ Virgo.
6 days since the last southern standstill on 2 December 2024 at 22:31 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-28.452° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 6 days to face maximum declination of ∠28.428° at the point of next northern standstill on 15 December 2024 at 20:12 in ♊ Gemini.
At 19:36 in the point ot ascending node the Moon is completing the last draconic month and is entering a new one while the lunar orbit is crossing the ecliptic from South to North.
In 5 days on 15 December 2024 at 09:02 in ♊ Gemini 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.
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