First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 51% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 7 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 15 August 2002 at 10:12 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 passing about ∠23° of ♏ Scorpio tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon of August 2002 after 7 days on 22 August 2002 at 22:29.
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.
Lunar disc appears visually 2.6% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1945" and ∠1895".
The Moon is 7 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 32 of Meeus index or 985 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 7 hours and 55 minutes and it is 12 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2002. 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 4 hours and 49 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 20 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠324.8° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠343.1°.
4 days since point of perigee on 10 August 2002 at 23:32 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 11 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 26 August 2002 at 17:43 in ♈ Aries.
The Moon is 368 553 km (229 008 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 11 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 694 km (252 087 mi).
11 days after ascending node on 4 August 2002 at 11:03 in ♊ Gemini 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 17 August 2002 at 02:54 in ♐ Sagittarius.
9 days since the last northern standstill on 6 August 2002 at 06:59 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠25.104° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 3 days to face maximum declination of ∠-25.159° at the point of next southern standstill on 19 August 2002 at 00:37 in ♑ Capricorn.
11 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♊ Gemini the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.
In 7 days on 22 August 2002 at 22:29 in ♒ Aquarius 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